tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75559582018-02-15T21:54:21.277-08:00Mini-MicrosoftWho da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.comBlogger308125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-6906856456717691032014-07-17T08:32:00.000-07:002014-07-17T08:32:06.584-07:0018,000 Microsoft Jobs Gone... Eventually?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>1. Cut Once.</b><br />
<br />
<b>2. Cut Deeply.</b><br />
<br />
And might I humbly add:<br />
<b>3. Cut Quickly.</b><br />
<br />
As of this morning, we're looking to cut <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/jul14/07-17announcement1.aspx">18,000 Microsoft positions</a> including around half of the Nokia destruction-palooza orchestrated by Mr. Elop and Mr. Ballmer.<br />
<br />
How does <a href="http://www.techmeme.com/140717/p7#a140717p7">this affect all of Microsoft</a>? Redmond? That's a bit unknown. Just looking at the State of Washington WARN site, I don't see a notification from Microsoft yet: <a href="http://www.esd.wa.gov/newsandinformation/warn/">http://www.esd.wa.gov/newsandinformation/warn/</a> .<br />
<br />
And that concerns me because now you have a level of stress and anxiety at Microsoft. First, the selfish stress about whether my job is affected. Then personal circle stress. Then partner collaboration stress. Then way out there general concerns about the company. And guess what: when folks are stressed and gossiping, they are not effectively - er, excuse me, productively (<i>?</i>) - implementing the latest strategy. Physiologically, they have increased cortisol and this time will turn into a fog.<br />
<br />
That's why I hope that <b>Cut Quickly</b> happens. Without it, we're back to our first layoff experience. If anything broke the back of this blog, it was the first big Microsoft layoff back in 2009. How? How could the realization of a step towards Mini-Microsoft do that? Because it was implemented so poorly, with constant worries and concerns and doubts about engaging in new ideas due to expectations those would be the easiest to trim during ongoing cut-backs. When was it over? When was the "<span style="color: navy;">all clear</span>" signal given?<br />
<br />
So if this truly drags on for a year: we need a new leader. This needs to be wrapped up by the end of July. 2014.<br />
<br />
One last small comment: yeah, everyone loves to flatten, including me. But to truly flatten engineering at Microsoft we need to decide that people management is actually a well invested career path. Most developers I know that become Leads are invariably harmless as a manager but spend most of their time deeply technical because they know that's where the rewards are. For the others that I know that have embraced becoming a people manager and have excelled there: well, if they get flattened into an Individual Contributor then they might as well leave Microsoft. Bless their hearts, but if they had to reconstitute their Dev skills to match the career ladder level they climbed to as a leader, they are sorely out of luck. I'll be honest with them. I hope all the other leaders out there are just as honest.<br />
<br />
So.<br />
<br />
Thoughts? Are you affected? The one bit of advice I can pass on from the previous round of layoffs: don't leave any HR 1:1 meeting without being absolutely satisfied you know everything you need to know and have everything to move forward. Because once you're out the door, for all the assurances you're going to get, it's super-hard to make a connection for more information and follow-up.<br />
<br />
Now, excuse me, I'm sure I'll have a busy morning. And like all of you, I'm keeping an eye out for a sudden HR Generalist meeting that pops up on my calendar... until I hear the All Clear.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><i><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> </i></span><br />
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Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com1380tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-86823771046292207902013-08-23T07:33:00.002-07:002013-08-23T07:33:52.275-07:00Steve Ballmer is Going to Frickin' Retire From Microsoft!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span style="font-size: medium;">OH</span></b><br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23AnnouncementPR.aspx">Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months</a></blockquote>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">MY</span></b><br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23StatementPR.aspx">Moving forward</a></blockquote>
<b><span>GOODNESS</span></b><br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-next-ceo-whos-on-the-short-list-7000019798/">Microsoft's next CEO Who's on the short list ZDNet</a></blockquote>
+1.<br />
<br />
Liked.<br />
<br />
Favorited.<br />
<br />
Ka-ching!<br />
<br />
A well prepared blogger, even a crusty spider-web covered 99.9%-retired one like me, would have at least had a post ready to go for this glorious circumstance, like how most news organizations have obituaries written up and ready to publish. I had no such optimism that this would be happening before 2017.<br />
<br />
To me, this throws the whole in-process re-org upside down. Why re-org under the design of the exiting leader? Even if the Senior Leadership Team goes forward saying that they support the re-org, it's undermined by everyone who is a part of it now questioning whether the new leader will undo and recraft the decisions being made now. I'd much rather Microsoft be organized under the vision of the new leader and their vision.<br />
<br />
As for that new leader? Let the guessing game begin. How about first crafting the list of skills. Microsoft is huge and complex and Ballmer does has to be respected for running something as crazy as Microsoft to the point where it always seemed like no one could possibly replace him.<br />
<br />
The first skill I'm putting down on my CEO job requisition is: "<span style="color: navy;">Has architected and implemented software features at the Principal level.</span>" Yeah, I want someone who has written complex software to run a big huge software (<i>and devices</i>) company. Crazy.<br />
<br />
What are your thoughts?<br />
<br />
This is going to be in interesting 2013 Company Meeting. As for Ballmer's habit of coming out to an inspirational song, may I suggest <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_in_the_Street">Dancing in the Street</a>. Because that's what my heart is playing right now. And of course, we need an exit song, too. Something, that perhaps begins with:<br />
<br />
"<span style="color: navy;">Na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na, Hey-Hey-Hey. -</span>"<br />
<hr />
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Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com617tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-85871798579761357902012-11-12T18:46:00.001-08:002012-11-12T18:46:41.410-08:00A Microsoft Without Sinofsky?Well, I can't believe it: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2012/Nov12/11-12AnnouncementPR.aspx">Microsoft Announces Leadership Changes to Drive Next Wave of Products</a>.<br />
People walking the hallways tonight at work certainly can't believe it. I can't believe it - working at a Microsoft without <b>Sinofsky</b>?<br />
<i>Inconceivable</i>.<br />
But, if you're going to leave on a high-note, it doesn't get much better. Mr. Sinofsky got a standing ovation from the Windows team during the Company Meeting for all that he's done to take them on a multi-year journey to create Windows 7 and then hit the big multi-division reset button for Windows 8. He truly demonstrated technical leadership at its best.<br />
And I don't believe his departure rules him out at all for Microsoft CEO. In fact, I think if he stays in tech and becomes CEO of another company it makes him an even more obvious choice to come back to Microsoft as its leader.<br />
Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/who-is-julie-larson-green-meet-the-new-head-of-windows-7000007292/">Ms. Larson-Green</a>: best of luck following this act.<br />
<hr />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><i><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com310tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-52735767802646210732012-07-19T08:46:00.001-07:002012-07-19T08:46:35.323-07:00Microsoft FY12Q4 Results - Plus That Lost Decade ThingQuarterly <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY12/Q4/default.aspx">results</a> time, quarterly post time.<br />
What kind of questions do you have the financials and what's ahead for Microsoft?<br />
For me: first of all, that damn browser is at again. If billions of dollars go towards amending IE then that pretty much undoes all the good work that Sinofsky has been weaving. Post consent-decree, there is a certain amount of swaggering happening on the old SafeCo campus. Oy.<br />
<ul>
<li>Financial impact of the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/17/eu-microsoft-browser-idUSL6E8IHEVN20120717">Browser Choice Screen</a> screw-up?</li>
<li>Sure enough, the exclusion of being able to install an alternative browser on Win8 RT (<i>a very purposeful name</i>) is getting <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9229357/Allegations_multiply_in_EU_browser_probe_of_Microsoft_">anti-trust</a> <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/18/eu-microsoft-browser-idINL6E8IIALJ20120718">attention</a>.</li>
</ul>
Other items in motion:<br />
<ul>
<li>Okay, so much for all that cash spent on aQuantive. How do the other acquisition investments shape up?</li>
<li>Expected Surface unit sells in next year? Availability? (<i>And if you've used Win8 on ARM, which are the preferred deities we should be praying to make it actually fast and fluid?</i>)</li>
<li>Poor Nokia.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<b>Microsoft's Lost Decade. So, you know, that happened.</b><br />
SteveB has often remarked on how he ignores the stock price of Microsoft and doesn't know what it takes to move it upward. Those financial types are just too darn inscrutable. He just focuses on doing his job. The stock has been flat and Microsoft Millionaire phenomena is a distant memory. It's a historical mind-trip to read a book like <i>Microsoft in the Mirror</i> and discover that most Microsofties then were hesitant to admit they worked at Microsoft, out of the resulting discomfort of everyone expecting them to be rich. Oh, to have such an awkward problem like that.<br />
While Microsoft is on the edge of rolling success after success (<i>financial and technical</i>) in Windows 8, Office 15, Windows Phone 8 (<i>yeah yeah</i>), and Xbox, there's a level of white-washing to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2012/07/11/microsofts-steve-ballmer-talks-about-windows-8-bill-gates-and-steve-jobs-and-why-microsofts-lost-decade-is-a-myth/">emphatically focus on what we currently have</a>, despite ourselves. Vista happened. Kin happened. Billions have been sunk into the success that is Xbox, including funding the fall-out of a rushed technical designs. aQuantive happened. Six billion dollars in shareholder value gone "<span style="color: navy;">poof!</span>" without so much a "<span style="color: navy;">ta-da!</span>" And now it appears the EU has the opportunity to return to the Microsoft ATM for millions or billions of USD due to the browser choice screen mysteriously disappearing from Win7 SP1. I guess the testers were too busy fixing their cranky automation to notice.<br />
I thought perhaps this year's SteveB Company Meeting "<span style="color: navy;">YEAAAAAH!!!</span>" victory dance song should be <i>I'm Still Standing</i> but now maybe <i>Oops,</i> <i>I Did it Again</i> is more appropriate. With you know, a little pinky pointed to the corner of the mouth.<br />
Vanity Fair has been making news with their <i><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer">Lost Decade</a></i> piece. I really hoped to find something new and salacious, but it wasn't much more than what you'd find written here between the posts and the many passionate, thoughtful comments from smart, good-looking people like you. Perhaps post-article the author <a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12444">Kurt Eichenwald</a> will get some good insider loving and have a more revealing follow-up.<br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-stack-ranking-forced-ranking-dell-accenture-deloitte-2012-7?op=1">Stack ranking</a> comes up as one of the reasons Microsoft does so poorly due to the internal competition and lack of cooperation it inspires, impacting strategy and results. Remember the org-chart cartoon from earlier? Microsoft was depicted as hierarchical organizations with handguns pointed at one another. Reality? Myth? Culture. Like some low-brow Ferrengi scavenger, leadership adopted stack ranking without really trying to think through their own system or realize that stack ranking is meant for organizations in transition (<i>layoffs / downsizing</i>) vs. a constant twice-a-year grind that goes on and on and on. Snippet from the above link:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The biggest mistake is to use it forever.</i><br />
<i>"If you're going to do forced ranking, look at it as a short-term, three-five year thing. Do it annually but don't do it forever. By the end of four or five years, you've gotten all the value," he says.</i><br />
<i>Microsoft's particular implementation of stack ranking has been used—and under fire—for way more than five years. In 2005, HR <a href="http://stevegall.wetpaint.com/page/Human+Resource+Management">grad student Stephen Gall published a scathing paper</a> on it for Walden University.</i></blockquote>
Just when we finish the annual review and calibration, it's time to update your commitments. And then it's mid-year check-in, followed by annual again. It's a hamster wheel spinning above sulfur-enriched coals. I don't know about you, but my annual assessment, if printed before I provided <i>any</i> of my comments, would go on for six pages. Six pages of detailed commitments. WTF is all I can say to the detailed craziness our review system has evolved into.<br />
The stakes behind our stack ranking changed radically with the last year's iteration. In one way, it's good: we're just talking about results. What did the person do? What did they accomplish? Then comes ordering people and goodness-forbid if you've gotten promoted recently because most likely it's congratulations and welcome to the bottom of the barrel. And it certainly does re-enforce the Peter Principle where you have people - very valued people - reach the peak of their career (<i>usually a high place</i>) and they discover the plateau can be a dispiriting place.<br />
Why does this matter? A healthy, dynamic company needs talented employees (<i>and most everyone has talent to some degree, not just the 1s and 2s</i>) to be able to flow around the company based on opportunity and need. What you end up with are the 1s and 2s being easily mobile, the 3s having some potential, and the 4s and 5s being locked out of groups being interested in them unless you have a very enlightened (<i>or desperate</i>) hiring manager. So what did you just do? Made it so that the people on top are the ones that can leave your org and everyone else is sort of stuck and disillusioned.<br />
Goldstars might be gone, but in its place we now have the 1* review ranking for the top of the top (so yes, it's really 1*, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It is a superstar culture, or at least a One-Star culture. We continue to celebrate the hero contributor, and team work is left for a poll question.<br />
And do savvy people try to game the system? Of course they do, except that it's called adjusting to the reality of the situation. I know reports that chat up their Aunt and Uncles (<i>peers to their manager</i>) when they have good news to share about themselves. I know backstabbers. And I know exceptionally naive backstabbers who for some reason think fragging their manager will help their career out, which perplexes me to no end especially when the manager has been their champion and their report doesn't even understand what their manager does. And now I've got a broken trust relationship.<br />
I'd love to know what new system LisaB came up with. I think it deserves to be revealed. Rumor is that she pushed this with Ballmer and there was no way he was going to let go of Neutron Jack's stack ranking. And after that supposed loss, LisaB sort of disengaged. Is she really the most <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-most-universally-hated-exec-at-microsoft-lisa-brummel-2012-7">universally hated executive</a>? I don't know about that, but she certainly slipped away from being loved. Thousands of employees used to cheer for her. Now? <br />
There's a thought-exercise being spread out over the past year that getting a 3 is like getting an A. That a 3 is good. Yeah, that's the ticket. Problem is, 2 is better and 1 is way better, and that 3 comes with a message that your peers are better than you. Well, your results. So the first question everyone is going to ask is, what does it take to get a 2 or a 1? One thing the Vanity Fair article touched on is, post stock options being the path to riches and reward, everyone is focused on getting a good review. I'd say beyond that, you have people at the top of Principal doing what it takes to make Partner. You see some pretty odd short-term crap happening out of L67 individuals desperate to break through, sometimes to the detriment of the product and group.<br />
And I don't see an end in sight. It's going to take Ballmer leaving for a new review system to have a chance. In the meantime, we're comforted by "<span style="color: navy;">well, other companies do it, too</span>" - like that class of excuse works for every teenager in the world. Microsoft is unique, and its employee experience should be unique and enriching, both for the bank account and for the people we hire and that we should continue to grow and enlighten.<br />
And yes, if you don't like it, you can turn in that blue badge and hit the road. For those of you who have and have a review system that you like far better, I'd love to hear (<i>well, read</i>) your perspective.<br />
<hr />
<span style="font-size: 85%;"><i><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com176tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-41327501598903583772012-04-19T22:01:00.001-07:002012-04-19T22:04:22.388-07:00Microsoft FY12Q3 Results<p>Isn't this the best time ever to be in tech! I love it. <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY12/Q3/default.aspx">And I love profits, too</a>!</p><p>I know, I just lost half of you there. </p><p>But it's amazing. The amount of competition and change and adoption makes me nothing but giddy. If you're a PlayStation fan-boy then you have to at least love the competition Xbox brings to make PS better. And same for Xbox. Same for Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The competition between iOS, Android, and Windows is awesome, especially if you're a developer or service being wooed day-in and day-out. </p><p>Inside Microsoft, we'll constantly flagellate ourselves about how other competitors are leapfrogging us. But it's good to see, starting way back when I said <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2009/07/microsoft-has-turned-corner.html">Microsoft Has Turned The Corner</a>, the amount of collaborative integration that has happened to make the whole far greater than the sum of the parts. A snippet from that post from near three years ago:</p><blockquote><p><i>Redemption takes a while. Time is needed to allow perception to change and to re-earn trust and respect. </i></p></blockquote><p>Windows 7 re-earned trust and respect. Windows 8 is a big turning point. It's not perfect. It's no true iPad compete story: it's different. However, it would not have existed without the iPad. Thank you, Apple. RIP Steve. It's a big reboot of the Windows developer story in a way that is fresh and semi-consistent, visually, across phone and Xbox (<i>and slowly across our web properties, too</i>). </p><p>Our developer story is still concerning. Windows 8 is blazing it's own trail, which is different than WP and different than Xbox. For now. It's not that I want to write the same app between all the platforms, but I do want no-friction traversal for a Dev to start on one, have a great idea, and switch over and start on the other, without muttering, "<span style="color:#000080;">WTF, this is completely different.</span>" We have a chance to get there and that vision needs to be revealed soon. </p><p>Consistency is one thing, quality is another. I was reading that HBR article about Steve Jobs leadership lessons and the first thing I thought about it: Steve Jobs would not have let almost any of those new Xbox apps ship. He would have torn them to pieces. I think this is a case where we so desperately wanted out partners to support the new Metro that we gave in to mediocrity. And once it's there, it's there for good. This is where we really need to clamp down or what is prime real-estate is going to turn into a flea market. </p><p>So anyway, how are we doing? I'd say we're on the upswing with endless challenges. We turned the corner and did indeed manage to get out of the bad side of town. Profits are up, people are writing appreciative come-back articles, and I really don't have much of an ax to grind (<i>well, except for the premier software company being completely incapable of creating an enlightened review model, let alone lately keep some key young talent</i>). Go-go-Microsoft!</p><p>Some links on today's earnings:</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2012/microsoft-beats-estimates-divisions-growth/">Microsoft beats estimates as most divisions see growth - GeekWire</a></li><li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">Microsoft’s Earnings Surpass Expectations - NYTimes.com</a></li><li><a href="http://betanews.com/2012/04/19/microsoft-q3-2012-by-the-numbers-17b-revenue-60-cents-eps/">Microsoft Q3 2012 by the numbers $17B revenue, 60 cents EPS</a></li><li><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57417047-75/microsoft-turns-in-a-strong-quarter/">Microsoft turns in a strong quarter Microsoft - CNET News</a></li><li><a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2018024409_microsoft_exceeds_analysts_estimates_with_1741_bil.html">Update Microsoft exceeds analysts' estimates with $17.41 billion 3Q revenue Microsoft Pri0 The Seattle Times</a></li></ul><p>See you next quarter!</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com64tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-82364171653101728942012-01-19T16:14:00.000-08:002012-01-19T16:17:43.910-08:00Microsoft FY12Q2 Results<p>Fiscal results:<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY12/Q2/default.aspx"> Microsoft Investor Relations - Earnings Release FY12 Q2</a>.</p><p>My favorite tech bloggers:</p><ul><li>Todd Bishop - <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2012/microsoft-beats-estimates-windows-profits-fall-11">Microsoft beats estimates even as Windows profits fall 11% - GeekWire</a></li><li>Mary Jo Foley - <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/windows-drops-to-no-3-cash-cow-status-in-microsoft-latest-quarter/11696">Windows drops to No. 3 cash-cow status in Microsoft' latest quarter ZDNet</a></li><li>Ina Fried - <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120119/slower-windows-sales-dent-microsoft-earnings/">Slower Windows Sales Dent Microsoft Earnings - Ina Fried - News - AllThingsD</a></li><li>Jay Greene - <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57362226-75/microsoft-earnings-meet-expectations-as-windows-sales-dip/">Microsoft earnings meet expectations as Windows sales dip Microsoft - CNET News</a></li><li>Joe Wilcox - <a href="http://betanews.com/2012/01/19/microsoft-q2-2012-by-the-numbers-windows-revenue-falls-6/">Microsoft Q2 2012 by the numbers Windows revenue falls 6%</a></li></ul><p>Sorta looks like there's a trend with reduced PC sales impacting Windows. It will be interesting a year from now to see (<i>given that it's released for Holiday 2012 and all</i>) if we see Windows 8 reversing the trend. Of course, the economy could just be better by then.</p><p>End of the obligatory quarterly post.</p><hr /><p>Briefly: what's going on here? Well, obviously, not much. </p><p>The only thing I've felt an urge to write about recently is Microsoft's curiously messed up media strategy when it comes to video and music. Zune Music is on its deathbed, Media Center moved back to Windows and that basically put it on indifferent life support. Microsoft breaking from Dolby in Windows 8 means a lot of stuff that used to work out of the box won't. But maybe the mess is simply a chaotic churn of local media assets being deprecated for services and for Xbox to start replacing media PCs. </p><p>I'm none to happy, but I'm one of those dinosaur's who loves the dickens out of his Media Center setup.</p><p>That small missive aside: I've avoided putting the Mini Cap on just because of dealing with the constant drone of negativity. Yeah yeah I made that bed and the chickens are coming home to roost in it. Or something like that. Comment moderation right now is a necessity and one big bumming drag. So I stopped. Sorry you 120+ pending comments. Once Google Blogger has native support for community influenced commenting (<i>just voting up and down, that's all I want</i>) I'll be more interested in resuming posts. For now, it's gotta be something major for me to put that Mini Cap on.</p><p>See you next quarter!</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-80754870054125633822011-10-20T21:15:00.001-07:002011-10-20T21:15:46.034-07:00Microsoft FY12Q1 Results<p>Here it is, FY12Q1 already: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/oct11/10-20fy12Q1earningsPR.mspx">Microsoft Reports Record First-Quarter Results $17.37 billion of revenue driven by solid business and consumer demand.</a>. Wow, is that the longest, braggy release title we've ever had? Read it and you'll also discover that Bing has an organic line. In the Q&amp;A session, <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/301037-microsoft-management-discusses-q1-2012-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda">Microsoft Management Discusses Q1 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha</a>, there was a lot of Qs about Skype and - news to me - we discover that $51 billion of our cash assets are kept offshore, to avoid taxes. Viva la 1%! (<i>I kid</i>).</p><p><i>(I'm out on the road so this will be short.)</i></p><p>My usual suspects:</p><ul><li>Mr. Jay Greene: <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20123363-75/microsoft-sees-strong-office-and-flat-windows-in-quarter/">Microsoft sees strong Office and flat Windows in quarter Microsoft - CNET News</a> - "<span style="color:#000080;">The company continues to generate mountains of cash. Even as it returned $2.7 billion to shareholders in the quarter, its cash hoard grew nearly $5 billion from June 30 to $57.4 billion.</span>"</li><li>Mr. Joe Wilcox: <a href="http://betanews.com/2011/10/20/microsoft-q1-2012-by-the-numbers-17-37b-revenue-5-7-billion-profit/">Microsoft Q1 2012 by the numbers $17.37B revenue, $5.7B profit</a> - on the flat Windows numbers: "<span style="color:#000080;">Earth to Windows &amp; Windows Live president Steven Sinofksy: You can't ship Windows 8 soon enough.</span>"</li><li>Mr. Todd Bishop: <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2011/microsoft-hits-profit-estimates-rising-server-office-sales">Microsoft hits profit estimates, lifted by Office and servers - GeekWire</a> and, more intriguing, <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2011/microsoft-results-show-ipad-hurting-windows-pc-sales">Microsoft results show how iPad is cutting into Windows PCs - GeekWire</a></li><li>Ms. Mary-Jo Foley: <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-earnings-insights-on-premises-office-still-has-a-lot-of-life-left/11054">Microsoft earnings insights On-premises Office still has a lot of life left ZDNet</a></li></ul><p>And a bonus view of OSD:</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sai">Business Insider - Microsoft Only Lost $500 Million Online This Quarter!</a></li></ul><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com177tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-58106237180637502672011-09-21T20:25:00.000-07:002011-09-27T20:13:02.587-07:00Friday! Friday! Friday! Microsoft Company Meeting 2011!<p>(<i><b>Note</b>: updated below with follow-up comments.</i>)</p><p>It's my most favorite time of the year: Friday the 23rd is the annual <b>Microsoft Company Meeting</b>!</p><p>That's right: I pull up my sleeves and thrust out my arms out wide and say, "<span style="color:#000080;">Shove in the Kool-Aid IVs to the left and to the right and keep it flowing!</span>" Man I love it. It is one of my favorite holidays of the year.</p><p>Reminder: when it comes to comments, share your internal-only content enthusiasm over on OfficeTalk (<i>especially via the otalk WP7 app</i>) vs. trying to put it here.</p><p><b>A Story of Steve, Steve, and Steven</b></p><p>This year is one of those inflection points: Apple has been soaring with its excellent device results, blowing Microsoft away and cannibalizing our Windows powered device market. The Microsoft stock is horribly flat and there are calls all-around for Ballmer to be replaced. Now, several things are in play: Mr. Jobs has stepped down due to his health reasons, WP Mango is reaching release with Nokia devices to begin their flow, and Windows 8 has demonstrated a reboot to the Windows experience and development platform. With Windows 8, Microsoft has emerged with the talking points that the company is being re-imagined.</p><p>All I can say is that SteveB should give SteveSi the CEO Bacon Achievement award: exceptional results that saved the CEO's bacon. Oh, SteveB had to be so happy to have Windows 8 revealed at BUILD right before the Financial Analysts Meeting. "<span style="color:#000080;">How ya like me <b>n-O-w</b>?!?!</span>" Actually, big chops to SteveSi who not only has done the impossible organizational wrangling between Win7 and Win8 (<i>and wherever it is leading with Win8+</i>) but also did such a smooth job with BUILD that some bloggers dared to pass the Steve Jobs torch to SteveSi. Wow. Didn't see that coming.</p><p>(<i>psst. Board. CEO ma-ter-ial. Uh-huh. There you go. Not that I'd probably work in a SteveSi CEO Microsoft, but ya could do a lot worse!</i>)</p><p>One thing I'd love to see SteveSi do: give the same level of support to writing Windows8 apps as Microsoft afforded its employees for Windows Phone. I'm not expecting him to, but if he did, I'd relish having my Spock-meets-Spartan view of him rebooted.</p><p><b>The Big Check-in - How Are Things Going</b></p><p>I expect that Mr. Turner will do the big picture for us. I like this <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/07/microsoft-fy11q4-results.html?showComment=1311712910086#c7606151536600227169">comment regarding one point of view of how things are going for Microsoft</a>:</p><blockquote><p><i>There are certainly some issues at MSFT but some of the people that post in this blog are just over the top in their pessimism and whining.
As I see it right now, the good, bad, and ugly of MSFT are:
The good:</i></p><ul><li><i>XBOX Kinect blew it away this past Holiday, over 35M customers now pay for the priviledge of XBox Live</i></li><li><i>The enterprise business is strong, committed revenue is higher than it's ever been (MSFT has a global enterprise business that is really unmatched by anyone</i></li><li><i>Office365 and Dynamics both are rapidly growing businesses with a ton of upside</i></li><li><i>MSFT now has 11 distinct businesses that do over $1B in revenue - I can think of maybe one or two other businesses on the planet (GE, etc) that can say the same</i></li><li><i>Largely because of this diverse portfolio of businesses, MSFT was able to grow revenue, operating income, and net income in spite of *declining* PC sales (MSFT is not a one-trick pony any longer, if it ever was)</i></li><li><i>Even with weakness in the PC market the past couple of quarters, it's hard to argue with the success of Windows 7 with over 400M licenses sold</i></li><li><i>MSFT's Cloud offerings collectively are second to none</i></li><li><i>Bing has a long ways to go but has actually made some progress in the US search market against Google, which was once thought impossible</i></li><li><i>As an employee, unless you are a bottom 20% performer, the new comp plan is a win. If you don't think so, then you don't really understand the change</i></li><li><i>Say what you will about Ballmer, there are some senior execs at MSFT that are truly outstanding. Mattrick, Satya, KT, Qi Lu, PK, Lisa B - you won't find anyone better than these folks anywhere</i></li><li><i>The Nokia partnership will be instrumental in getting a WP7 device in a lot of people's hands</i></li></ul><p><i>The bad:</i></p><ul><li><i>As mentioned, PC sales actually declined in Q4</i></li><li><i>MSFT still hasn't figured out a way to win in India or China and doesn't seem to have a cohesive strategy for emerging markets</i></li><li><i>WP7 is a good product but as others have alluded to, MSFT is way late to the party in terms of highly functional / attractive UI / rich app eco-system smartphones. The Nokia deal only allows MSFT some hope at playing catch-up at this point</i></li><li><i>Employees will soon have to pay a contribution (and deductibles) for health care (thank you very much ObamaCare and the Cadillac Tax for bringing that to us)</i></li><li><i>Although there are talented people still there, a lot of talented folks have left MSFT senior leadership in the past 18 months or so - Liddell, Elop, Muglia, Bach, etc, etc. Although Elop was instrumental in getting the Nokia deal up and going</i></li></ul><p><i>The ugly:</i></p><ul><li><i>AAPL sold 20M iPhones and over 9M iPads in a quarter. In. A. Quarter. Let that sink in a moment</i></li><li><i>While MSFT has plenty of other viable businesses, none is as profitable nor as core strategically as Windows. Windows was once an impenetrable fortress, but in the past year, AAPL has penetrated it with a single product launch. MSFT is destined to play catch-up in slates, and it sounds like nothing serious is coming out until Windows 8 in another 12 to 15 months (maybe)</i></li><li><i>MSFT is still very strong in the enterprise but to the consumer, MSFT seems completely dead. MSFT has no consumer mindshare any longer</i></li><li><i>Yes, there are some interesting possibilities with Skype and Lync and XBox (etc), but it is still not at all clear that shareholders will reap anything close to $8.5B of value</i></li><li><i>GOOG still dominates search in the US and will for the foreseeable future. And their dominance is even greater internationally</i></li><li><i>OSD as an org continues to bleed money and will continue to do so for at least another couple of years</i></li></ul><p><i>There it is, from a high-performing L63 employee in a broad-based business role, trying to lay things out in a truly fair and balanced manner. Take it or leave it.</i></p></blockquote><p>I'm glad to see The Cloud in the somebody's <i>Win</i> column. When it comes to the Company Meeting, I personally am dreading anything that can be in the least bit tangled up with... sigh... THE CLOUD. Two things lost my respect to this force-fed-bubble-gum-on-my-shoe initiative: first, that using our cloud services is Alpha-Geek hostile: sorry, but there should have been upfront a free tinkering environment to go and write a whole bunch of real fun, heavy computational code. Second, that we started to slap THE CLOUD on crazy crap like home PC image editing.</p><p>Really.</p><p>So, I don't know, smuggle in a bunch of tequila and limes and whenever THE CLOUD comes up take another hit. That will at least make it palatable... in a numb, doesn't-seem-to-hurt-quite-like-it-did sort of way.</p><p><b>The New Review System and Hiring</b></p><p>Yeah, I think there's zero chance the Senior Leadership Team will go into much depth here. "<span style="color:#000080;">Cheer if you like the new review system! ... Okay, there's 40% of you. How about the rest? Give me a 'Whoo?'</span>" Want to wade in it? Pour yourself a three fingers of bourbon (<i>and keep the bottle handy</i>) and go through all the comments in the <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/08/microsoft-annual-review-2011.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Annual Review 2011</a> post. 1,200 comments at this point. Whew.</p><p>Strict stack ranking on a fixed curve is a tool brought in for a purpose that didn't exist in the previous review system. Having LisaB take a break from her sabbatical (<i>and, btw, what happens to most people after their sabbatical?</i>) to tell us it's being done because employees felt that the old review system was too complex is a load of greasy smoke up the keister.</p><p>I look at this system and, stepping back, it makes sense if you're preparing to do some major organizational slimming over, say, a three year period. For instance, if SteveB where going to leave, I imagine before he goes he would cut back huge parts of Microsoft versus leaving that task to the new CEO, who might make radically bad cut-back decisions (<i>from the former CEO's point of view</i>). Better to give over to the new leader a starving company ready to grow versus a fat pig you've got to go all Neutron-Jack on. Three more years. Three more years to drive down until today's lower 3s are FY2014's 5s.</p><p>Depending on who is being forced out or leaving, too, the new system might help with the <i>Young up Microsoft</i> initiative I hear whispers of.</p><p><b>Whoo-and-Hoo!</b></p><p>Didn't like your review? Ah, come on. You know when Ballmer runs around the field you're going to scream and shout (<i>though, given the last Ballmer memo's authorship, maybe we'll see Frank Shaw run around first to warm things up</i>). You're going to stand up. You're going to put aside all the depressing thoughts of those golden handcuffs never unfolding into a sparkling world of wonderment and retirement. You've got a job, a colorful CEO, perhaps a nice raise, and a company holiday to find out what's going on and to have some free grub with your work buds. Compared to 99% of the rest of the world right now, it's worth swigging the Kool-Aid for at least one day and cheering. </p><p>There's always the rest of the year for everything else.</p><p><i><b>Updated: impressions and follow-up</b></i></p><p><i>Overall</i>: a very competent Microsoft Company Meeting. Polite applause. "<span style="color:#000080;">Pip pip.</span>"</p><p>Other than the occasional video (<i>heh heh, Inception</i>) and the first one or two Train Dances, it was a low-on-humor meeting, for me. Everyone wondered if we were having a host this year. Hey, it was LisaB. Competent (<i>and probably didn't piss people off like last year</i>).</p><p>This year was demo-rama. I think the demos were good, it's just I had seen so much of everything being presented that there weren't too many surprises for me. I loved the fact that SteveSi ran one of his demos and then pointed out that everything he had just done was on an ARM slate. I regret how much money we're pouring into OSD (<i>who pointed out that they are quite </i>frugal<i> - uh-huh</i>) but I agree with a lot of what they are doing: they are not trying to out-Google-Google. They're Bing'ing Google upside the head. Go, Cosmos, go!</p><p>As for Mr. Ballmer: it was a surprise that he didn't come running and screaming out but rather had a surrogate fly around like a chimp on crack dusted with meth. Mr. Ballmer seemed more subdued this year. Love for Ballmer? People still stood up and cheered and clapped for him. Now then: someone please tell him, regarding his analogy of himself and Elop and Windows Phone sticking together, how <i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</i> ended. Yeah, they were together alright, but the result was a little bit different than jumping off a cliff into a river.</p><p>As for people leaving (<i>as some of the tech bloggers have picked up</i>): yeah, people were streaming out. In small numbers. No where near as bad as BillG's last company meeting where Ballmer started screaming at people to sit down. And, well, yes, I was one of those folks who wandered to the upper portion of the seats while Mr. Ballmer passed on his coachie wisdom from Friday Night Lights (<i>BTW, I prefer coach John Wooden</i>). I suppose if Microsoft had been serving beer and snacks after the meeting I would have managed to stay in my seat.</p><p>So for me: technically well executed. Pip pip. I feel good about what Microsoft has wrought and how many of the things we're doing are exactly the kind of big, cross-group bets folks used to complain how we never do. The Imagine Cup winners were great to see. Pip pip. As for the meeting... I'd like a little culture, too. Maybe less inspirational videos. And more crazy. Not burping game crazy or Craig Mundie dazed-crazy, but show we have some pizzazz... with less explosive volume. And I'm fine with a box lunch if it means I don't have to stand in an infernal line to get a luke-warm burger melded to its bun.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com402tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-77245541166247465182011-08-20T07:15:00.000-07:002011-08-20T07:19:28.822-07:00Microsoft Annual Review 2011<p>It has become a tradition for folks to share their review numbers to help get a sense of what's happening and how your numbers stack up. This year we have a new challenge of working through an entirely new review system and (<i>for engineering</i>) a pay-raise for the levels most at risk of departing for greener pastures. I know folks on the edge of leaving who have been willing to hang on to see what happens.</p><p>What's a good format? How about something like the following, obfuscated as you wish:</p><ul><li>L# (promo'd?)</li><li>Bucket (1+, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)</li><li>Merit % (/Promo %) / Engineering?</li><li>Bonus $K</li><li>Stock $K</li><li>Optional comments about Division / Group, discipline, impression of review</li></ul><p>If you like the review system, I'd really like to understand why (<i>something better than, "whee, I got a 1+," please</i>) and I'd encourage commenters to not slam the positive perspectives. I'm not too pleased with the new system at all because I feel very good engineers in my org are getting lower results because of a very strict curve. I'm probably breaking the rules in that if an excellent person got a 3 I'm having my folks be truthful in writing review feedback that, yes, they did an excellent job, just when it comes to the 3 realize that more people did even more excellent work and what it is they need to do to step it up (or, you know, start connecting recruiters with all of those competing 1s and 2s). Same thing for 4s who are doing a good job and not really having any performance problem. HR would prefer me to write the text of the review according to the verbiage of the ranking system, but screw that. I did that years ago when people got a trended 3.0 and I'm still scrubbing those dark spots of demoralizing compliance off my soul.</p><p>How do you feel, whether you're a manager writing reviews this year and comparing results to last year, or an IC trying to make sense of your compensation and recognition?</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>
Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com1310tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-83029169407618988412011-07-21T10:19:00.000-07:002011-07-21T10:22:55.333-07:00Microsoft FY11Q4 Results<p><i>(ring-ring, Mini, ring-ring)</i></p><p>How is this <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY11/Q4/default.aspx">quarter shaping up</a>? First of all, let's review some competitors:</p><ul><li>IBM: Bang! Third base!</li><li>Google: Boom! Out of the park, home-run!</li><li>Apple: Ka-Blam! Out of the city. Game over!</li></ul><p>We've already been given a small preview thanks to the Partner conference: good Windows 7 numbers and Windows Phone, as loved as it might be (<i>especially compared to Android</i>) just ain't selling much. And no one is holding out any hopes that current customers will see their Mango update until New Years.</p><p>The iPad continues to suck in consumer love and money... money that we'd prefer they send our way but there's nothing comparable for them to buy. Windows 8 ARM tablets? Sometime next year, but what we showed at All Things D is our take of squeezing an elephant into a VW bug. Here's some deep respect and chops to the folks doing all this work, but it's a subtraction game followed by many frustrating conversations about why it's okay not to have certain obvious things work... obviously. And I have to say it's fascinating watching Sinofsky wrangle the Windows organization in this long game of reshaping itself and the consequences it has for the rest of the company.</p><p>My one analyst question for today: when the hell is Bing going to stop losing money?!? It appears that the internal hiring spree has finally cooled down so that's good - the piling of warm bodies has stopped (<i>well, only to be replaced by throwing warm bodies on The Cloud because, ah-huck, we're all in</i>). Seriously though, now's the time to start shaking the Bing tree and let the goodness of the search eco-system keep on going and shed the remaining busy work. Come on, if Xbox did it, so can you!</p><hr /><p><b>Calibration cacophony</b>: I owe a post about our new review system but I'm not going to put money down about when that's going to happen. In the meantime, I'd love to sit down with each and everyone of you that supposedly told LisaB that the previous review system, with its Exceeded and Achieved and its 20% this and 70% that, was just too durn hard to comprehend. Let's chat. This discuss (<i>*whack* against the side of your head</i>) your results for this year. I'd like to discuss (<i>*whack*</i>) what a peer relative result within a strict percentage based system means. As part of this discussion (<i>*whack* *whack* *whack*</i>) you'll learn that your results are less that what you're used to and the message and your rewards are strictly viewed through your percentile bucket, no matter if you're at the top of your bucket or the bottom. I do seem to have some feedback from your peers to discuss (<i>*whack*</i>) although the majority of it seems to spring from a glowingly content-free "<span style="color:#000080;">I'll rub your back if you'll rub mine</span>" point of view.</p><p>Be careful what you ask for, because the person listening might turn it into one big step backwards. Oh, and for some of you, here's a salary bump.
</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com452tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-32230525307505360172011-05-10T09:02:00.000-07:002011-05-10T09:05:04.273-07:00Skype? Steve Ballmer Discovers a Way to Obliterate Eight and a Half Billion Microsoft Shareholder Dollars!<p>That's $8,500,000,000USD for the Skype brand.</p><p><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/may11/05-10CorpNewsPR.mspx">Microsoft to Acquire Skype Combined companies will benefit consumers, businesses and increase market opportunity.</a></p><p>Also, because, you know, the aQuantive acquisition didn't destroy enough shareholder money.</p><p>We're bringing Skype to the Windows Phone. Just like how it's on the iPhone and Android and appears it will continue to be.</p><p>Okay, so we're bringing Skype to the Xbox. Because, you know, we don't already have video chat on the Xbox. Oh, wait... crap. Why do we need this? Other than the brand and the user base, and that's not worth 8.5 billion dollars.</p><p>Some early stories:</p><ul><li>Mr. Jay Greene at CNet: <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20061401-75.html?tag=mncol;1n">Microsoft betting Skype keeps it ahead of Google, Apple Microsoft - CNET News</a></li><li>Ms. Mary Jo Foley: <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-buys-skype-for-85-billion-creates-new-business-division/9406">Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion; creates new business division ZDNet</a></li><li>Mr. Todd Bishop: <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2011/reason-microsofts-skype-deal-sense-kinect">Skype and Kinect could be Microsoft’s new killer combo - GeekWire</a></li></ul><p>What I'd like to hear is each Microsoft board member share their reasoning why this is an excellent idea and worth 8.5 billion dollars. And I'd keep a really, really close eye on their nose.</p><p>Geez.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com574tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-30613711098727926642011-04-28T07:52:00.000-07:002011-04-28T07:55:05.248-07:00Microsoft FY11Q3 Results<p>What's on your mind as the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY11/Q3/default.aspx">Microsoft FY11Q3 results</a> get released? Some things I'm thinking of:</p><p><b>Win7 Business being eaten alive by iPads?</b> Oh, those hungry hungry cannibals eating away the post-PCs for your PC dependent iPad slates. Probably no good news in the Win7 OS business could please people seeing Apple having to buy everyone working at Apple pants with ten pockets so that they can continue stuffing money into them.</p><p><b>Office 14 / SharePoint</b>: continued strength? Leveled? Dip?</p><p><b>Kinect</b>: what are the post-holiday sells like?</p><p><b>Xbox Live security</b>: not that we want to be cocky, but if Xbox Live was broken into like Sony's Playstation Network Microsoft would have a big-black eye. Probably two. How confident is Microsoft in the network's security?</p><p><b>WP7 numbers</b>: how has the trend been in activated phones? How is the Nokia deal shaping up? How will Microsoft not be the weepy little toy of the phone carriers crying over a release chart when the Mango update goes out?</p><p><b>Share price</b>: talk about one dead share. It's a dead fish. That a bunch of hippy dock-workers played hacky-sack with and left to rot out in the sun. So dead that we're shifting budgets around to not award stock but give out crisp, sweet-smelling Benjamins instead to the employees we value most. Microsoft millionaire days? A long, long distant memory. I think of that book <i>Microsoft In The Mirror</i> where a number of interviewees were reluctant to share with outside folks that they work at Microsoft because folks would light up, assuming they were rich beyond words. Today's response? "<span style="color:#000080;">You work at Microsoft? Well bless your heart.</span>"</p><p><b>Keeping employees</b>: seems as though we'll need to justify the extra bucks and effort the company is putting into spreading cash to the section of employees most likely to be recruited (<i>aka poached</i>) or give up on Microsoft. I'm sure that the investors could care less about our performance review system, but it's sad we stuck with a 20th-centry industrial review system for a 21st century Gen.Next workforce. Like many opportunities: buh-lown.</p><p>The two pressure points I certainly continue to feel:</p><p><b>WP7</b>: the NoDo update was just a Class-A Cluster-Fuck. And I don't use language like that very often. And the fact that the pre-update bricked phones was inexcusable. The WinMo team has to realize that everything they have to do must be <b>perfect</b> and <b>ahead of schedule</b> (<i>wrt running in customer's hands</i>). Any sort of focus other than that is a recipe for disaster. Mr. Ballmer is a fan of Coach John Wooden. WWJWD? Pound excellence into the team such that releasing an update was the easiest thing they had to do. If you're the kind of person looking for a challenge to fix Microsoft and prop-up its future, look for opportunities to join that team. Less Pink, more you.</p><p><b>iPad</b>: it's pretty. It's slick. It comes from a company where design is realized. It doesn't do as much as a PC, but it does enough. And by now everyone has been able to put together the pieces (<i>e.g., Windows 8 demonstrated running on ARM</i>) to figure out when Microsoft might release something that has similar form factor. But will it have the elegance and cohesiveness of the iPad 2, let alone the iPad 3? Will it be too late? </p><p>Should Microsoft release an iPad competitor, it will be THE defining moment for Microsoft's future: back in the game or game over.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com174tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-36153995251165828592011-04-21T07:58:00.000-07:002011-04-21T08:02:01.705-07:00Microsoft's New Review and Compensation System - Now With More Cash!<p>"<span style="color:#000080;">I am not a number, I am a free man!</span>"</p><p>Well, at least we don't have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner">Six</a> to give out.</p><p>Goodbye E/A/U + 20/70/10[I/II] and hello 1 to 5.</p><p>Kim, we just don't have a <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/11/no-so-limited-kim.html">Limited to give to you anymore</a>.</p><p>So we have a new review model. And a rework of our compensation. With cash, cash, cash. Forget that Microsoft stock because it's dead in the water and today's Microsoft employee is all about the paycheck. And if you actually work on creating products at Microsoft, you're getting an extra R&amp;D bump.</p><p>And with the new 1 to 5 review score we have a new curve, too. 20% of you get a 1 (<i>whoo-hoo!</i>), 20% of you get a 2, 40% of you get a 3, 13% get a 4, and 7% get a 5. And probably fired.</p><p>Your review score is now a composite of: your results (<i>where results, not effort, matters</i>), what you did to get your results, and what your proven capability is. With an ideal that teamwork and feedback is now part of the review system, though it's not clear if feedback is mandatory via peer based reviews.</p><p>It's too bad that the internal InsideMS blog has been eradicated and wiped out of existence. It could have lived on a little bit longer so that the review system could be discussed there.</p><p>So what are your reactions?</p><p>Is the InfoPath-based review form dead? Please? Can we go back to a simple little Word form out of respect to our new simplified review score?</p><p>The next thing I think of, as a manager, is how is calibration now run. We used to do two stack ranks for the two review scores. Now we either do one or we do three (<i>results, what was done for the results, and proven capability</i>). Three seems crazy.</p><p>Next is whether this will indeed help retain employees. We've been losing a lot of good people and the Puget Sound area is ramping up in hiring. Google has always been draining people away. Facebook is now grabbing some great developers and Amazon is hiring like crazy.</p><p>So now you have some mystery amount of cash in your future to look forward to. And a simpler review score. But is that what you really want? Is that what you told LisaB during her Listening Tour? Given that Microsoft stock is in the toilet, does the future influx of cash coming in September make you feel better about working at Microsoft and will this make up for having reduced benefits (<i>e.g., a new medical plan with more of that new cash out of your pocket</i>)?</p><p>Will you be honestly told during the whole year how well you're doing so that you have frank feedback that helps you be fulfilled with your job? A problem with Stack Ranking is that leadership (<i>once burnt by the review model</i>) holds back praise due to the peer relative Stack Rank pushing a person down and then creating a "<span style="color:#000080;">surprise</span>" gap between the past praise feedback given and the review result earned. That's not fixed.</p><p>Anyway: let's celebrate saying goodbye to the 10% / Limited rating. Since the 10%-ers were not actually fired you ended up keeping people on staff who were designated as now plateaued and limited in there career at Microsoft. They had reached the end of of the ladder. These now demoralized individuals with no hope for future rewards or promotions should have at least been given a Peter Principle plaque or something.</p><p>Old school: with respect to the new Scarlet A, I assume that a 4 is the old 3.0 and that a 5 is a 2.5 and that having either a 4 or a 5 now limits other group's interest in your career, which kind of means that we've gone from making 10% of the employees unattractive to making 20% of the employees unattractive. We'll see if that's the case as this plays out of over time.</p><p>So, chair-rearranging or just what you were looking for?</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p><p> </p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com649tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-12123158592849926972011-01-27T21:39:00.000-08:002011-01-27T21:40:26.700-08:00Microsoft FY11Q2 Results<p>A quick check from the last Quarterly Results leading up to today's <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY11/Q2/default.aspx">Microsoft Quarterly Results</a>:</p><ul><li>What's <i>great</i>: Kinect. We sold millions of Kinects and it's full of cool! And we have a 93% customer satisfaction rate with Windows Phone 7. Looking around, I think that's also assuming that 93% of Windows Phone 7 handsets sold are the Samsung Focus.</li><li>What's <i>good</i>: our reputation is working through the bothersome-hated-defeated-spurned-ignored-renewed-respected cycle compared to Google.</li><li>What's <i>okay</i>: Windows Phone 7: we sold some to non-employees and two-million licenses are in the channel. I have no idea what that means with-respect-to actually sold hardware. But it's no KIN, so... success! Yeah.</li><li>What's <i>really, really bad</i>: the iPad is gnawing away our laptop market. And a new version is coming out soon.</li></ul><p><b>Hungry Hungry Cannibals</b>: reading Ms. Friar's last beat-the-hell out of Microsoft Goldman-Sachs report just about made me permanently hungry for human flesh given the repeated fixation on cannibalization. I swear, I'd look up from my print-out occasionally and longingly eye my more fit co-workers. </p><p>It's the iPad baby, and - booga booga - it's going to destroy Microsoft. Well, at least destroy Windows.</p><p>First all: sure, Microsoft leadership deserves all the head-bashing it gets for both mobile and small form-factor markets. We had the jump on these markets with inelegant, uninspired devices that never had a chance of taking off with consumers and no one was bold enough to reboot the product line without successful leadership from Apple showing us the way.</p><p>Next: our iPad-compete strategy is unspoken. For good reason. Just about any application developer at Microsoft can tell you that it's a secret wrapped in red. Most Microsoft-observers have put the pieces together and figured out our strategy could be and realize who could be on point to deliver something exceptionally cool to compete with Apple. This will certainly could be our bet-the-company chance to validate the tortoise-vs-the-hare fable.</p><p>How have our past tortoises fared? I can think of three recent late to market responses: Zune HD (<i>iPod - remember those?</i>), Kinect (<i>Wii</i>), and Windows Phone 7 (<i>iPhone / Android</i>). All great devices. In order for our possible iPad compete story to be a success, it has to pull a Kinect and be beyond the competition vs. a me-too or, well, me-kinda-sorta.</p><p><b>CEO Changes</b>: Mr. Ballmer's respect meter in the ephemeral tech-business... news (<i>?</i>) world is still low. Kinect has helped, but questions linger regarding what he's doing with his leadership team given Muglia's upcoming departure. I had always remarked to folks that Bob's a survivor. His time just finally ran out. It will be intriguing to see what leadership steps in or up and what happens to Bob's current team. And who might be next. Bets? Unless HR is about to unleash something huge that's been in the making my first bet is on LisaB. Also, Craig, I'd love to know what successes you've brought to the company as of late.</p><p>In the midst of Google and Apple going through leadership changes, you've got to ask: who is on the bench to replace Mr. Ballmer? What is the Board's plan? I have to reject Ms. Foley's point of view that there is no-one that can replace Ballmer. That's a <i>too big to fail</i> leadership jail sentence. Perhaps the decision is that his departure immediately results in a broken up Microsoft and the presidents he is putting in place now would be quite capable of running those sister corporations. Given the convergence and consolidation that is happening internally on a number of fronts for future development, such sister corporations would be much more dependent on each other, so it's not as whacky - or dog-eat-dog cannibalistic - as it might have seemed in the past. Given that the consent decree is considered over, Microsoft self-breaking itself up will certainly help prevent penalties when the inevitable violation occurs.</p><p>From another angle: if the Sinofskyfication of the company continues (<i>IEB now with its massive re-org complete, post-Muglia Server &amp; Tools next?</i>) then Mr. Sinofsky ascending over a whole Microsoft will be a moot decision.</p><p>Interesting coverage after the results:</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/01/amazoncom-on-a-hiring-tear.html">Amazon adds thousands more workers; Microsoft still cautious</a> - Mr. Todd Bishop looks at the hiring trend of Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Want to find a new job? Knock on Amazon or Google's door. Microsoft is pretty much a flat-line.</li><li><a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/01/microsoft-tops-estimates-kinect.html">Microsoft tops estimates; Kinect fuels Xbox; Windows 7 hits 300M</a> - Mr. Todd Bishop again.</li><li><a href="http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110127/microsoft-crows-on-its-earnings-conference-call-touting-xbox-and-office-strength/">Microsoft Sees Business Tech Spending Continuing to Rebound, Benefiting Office and Windows Ina Fried Mobilized AllThingsD</a> - Ms. Ina Fried</li><li><a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-microsofts-results-easily-beat-expectations/">Microsoft’s Results Easily Beat Expectations paidContent</a> - Mr. Joseph Tartakoff</li><li><a href="http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Microsoft-Q2-2011-by-the-numbers-Record-1995B-revenue-77-cents-EPS/1296163383">Microsoft Q2 2011 by the numbers Record $19.95B revenue, 77 cents EPS Betanews</a> - Mr. Joe Wilcox.</li><li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earnings-2011-1">Microsoft Beats The Street, But Not By Enough To Send Stock Soaring</a> - Mr. Matt Rosoff</li><li><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/27/why-microsoft-desperately-needs-to-become-more-acquisitive/">Why Microsoft Desperately Needs To Become More Acquisitive</a> - Mr. Robin Wauters. Dude. More acquisitions? Really.<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2007/05/18/microsoft-pays-6-billion-for-aquantive/"> aQuantive still blows my six billion dollar mind</a>. Can someone help me remember some of the recent good acquisitions that Microsoft has made. Is it better to make none or risk some of these money vaporization deals we've done (<i>stupid billion dollar bat</i>).</li></ul><p>In general, no surprise to people that Windows/Live was down and that Entertainment was up on the Kinect. Online (<i>aka Bing aka Partner-Level-Palooza</i>) lost over half-a-billion dollars. And gained a bit of market share.</p><p>Pulling out my crystal ball that's covered with dust along with all the other Mini implements used to write this blog (<i>oooo, an unopened bottle of Col Solare! Score!</i>): Microsoft product groups should feel good about WP7 and the influence Metro is having around the company. Like I said, there's a big convergence ahead of us, and it will be good to start aligning a simpler development story, both for Microsoft and its partners. The biggest obvious concern is the development path for the mobile platform compared to the development path for Windows, but even there you can squint and see on the horizon the possibility for that to be successful, too.</p><p>IE9 is great technology that yes, has a way to go to score some high compliance number across a bunch of random folk's assessment sites. Still: wow. WP7 is a modern joy to use and is slowly building an app catalog. Kinect. And a whole bunch of developers hunched over and hammering bits to create the next big "<span style="color:#000080;">Wow.</span>" Yeah, "<span style="color:#000080;">Wow</span>" might be inscribed on the back of a tortoise, but sometimes... the tortoise wins in the end.</p><p>The only thing that concerns me right now is (<i>and you're going to love this</i>): hiring. We've got great successes that excite people about working at Microsoft, but really, how many more people are we hiring to work on Kinect? My friends and I have never been so courted by other companies. Not since 2000. And I've got to say, the culture that Ballmer and LisaB have created is really weary. It's enlightened for the mid-1980s. But if crazy stock price jumps are no longer enthusing your employees, you've got to reboot the culture.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com715tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-18019589421511900822010-10-28T07:41:00.000-07:002010-10-28T07:45:06.777-07:00Microsoft FY11Q1 Results<p>How about some <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/fy11/earn_rel_q1_11.mspx">FY11Q1 Microsoft earnings</a>!</p><p>My usual suspects for earnings discussion:</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox">Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News</a></li><li><a href="http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/">Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog</a></li><li><a href="http://twitter.com/josephtartakoff">Mr. Joseph Tartakoff</a> somewhere within <a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/">paidContent.org</a>.</li></ul><p><b>Once more, with feeling. </b></p><p>I expect that we'll have yet another break-out quarter, a better idea that Kinect is poised to be a great seller for the holidays (<i>sell-out pre-orders and screaming Oprah audiences can't be too wrong</i>), and some glow from reasonable WP7 reviews (<i>oh, and yes, we all realize that it doesn't have copy and paste - and yet the apocalypse will not arrive</i>). </p><p>So this seems like a do-over with more good news from the last quarter. Will Wall Street react with the same "<span style="color:#000080;">Meh</span>?" </p><p>An interesting pre-earnings release article: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69P45I20101027">Sleepy in Seattle - Microsoft learns to mature</a>.</p><p>Again, not much love for Mr. Ballmer. So, since the last quarterly earnings, Ms. Friar at Goldman Sachs dropped a bomb on Microsoft and there's been serious concern that Mr. Ballmer is clearing the executive bench at Microsoft. Or is it cleaning house? Since we're unable to criticize any mistakes our departed leaders have made, it remains a big unknown.</p><p><b>iPad, iPad, iPad! </b></p><p>Once it was "<a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2004/12/smarciagoogleg.html">Google, Google, Google</a>." Now it's Apple's iPad meant to be Microsoft's undoing. First of all, major props to Apple's continued success. It's been a long journey for Steve Jobs and Apple - especially for those of us who read <i>The Journey is the Reward</i> back when it was new. I like my iPad. It's fun. It's also no notebook replacement. I'm not even going to use it for writing tweets on Twitter, let alone writing emails. It's for screwing around, and I like screwing around... so I like my iPad. I'm blessed that I've got the spare cash for such a luxury device and the spare time to play with it.
</p><p>It's a new, quick consume experience that our Tablet vision failed to realize because our Tablet vision (<i>like all visions of that time</i>) was so firmly shoved up the Enterprise's butt we didn't care for consumers who'd pay good money to have a fun device to facilitate their screwing around.</p><p>We continue an expensive lesson in enlightenment. And spanking: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc/index.htm">Microsoft's consumer brand is dying</a>.</p><p>And goodness help us if Apple TV takes off. Our inability to string together a coherent TV strategy (<i>despite having been in the TV realm for over a decade</i>) is yet another dropped pants embarrassment waiting to happen and represents the anxiety that Wall Street has about our future despite having successes in the present.</p><p><b>Bloodletting </b></p><p>Cost cutting's slippery slope continues. I'm sure if we don't talk about continued overhead management (<i>people, benefits, etc</i>) that it will be an analyst question. I still believe we need to chuck about 15,000 positions (<i>and half of our super-ballooned contingent staff</i>) rather than continue the slow squeeze around the company that's making this an ordinary job with some extraordinary wonderful people who just haven't given up on the company. Yet. I hope that the analysts realize that continued, consistent bloodletting because a negative for hiring, and (<i>allow me to be pro-hiring for a moment</i>) if we can't bring in deep-talented new blood to replace the departed dead wood, our future is doomed to mediocrity.</p><p>And that doesn't get you a good dividend.</p><p><b>New Talent </b></p><p>And we're losing the battle for hiring new talent. If you review who we're losing to, it's a big surprise. You look at who is ahead of us in preference and you say, "<span style="color:#000080;">Really? Graduating students think <span style="font-style: italic;">they </span>are a better place to work than <span style="font-style: italic;">us</span>?</span>" It's a cold splash of reality that makes me - they guy who said we've turned things around and things are going great for our major initiatives - wonder if things are worse outside of the Microsoft bubble than I thought.</p><p><a href="http://twitter.com/fxshaw">Frank</a>, you're fighting an epic battle.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com655tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-27516733438544031962010-10-19T07:18:00.000-07:002010-10-19T07:20:53.494-07:00Mr. Ray Ozzie and Microsoft's Chief Software Architect - So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu, adieu, adieu<p>A Microsoft position got retired this week: Chief Software Architect.</p><p>That used to be - quite unofficially - Mr. Bill Gates by the sheer nature of his intellect. And it led to many entertaining and terrifying BillG Reviews. A good friend of mine at the time, an architect for his team before we got all hung up about titles like that, bragged: "<span style="color:#000080;">I've never been to a BillG review and I intend to retire without going through one.</span>" He did. </p><p>But I think he missed out. As have, unfortunately, many intellectually shallow PowerPoint B.S artists who rose up the ranks in the meantime.</p><p>When I was a teenager, one book I loved to contemplate over was a series of quotes by Robert Heinlein's character Lazarus Long. One goes like (<i>courtesy the internet vs. hard-copy because the book is lost behind a stack of neglected Col Solare</i>): "<span style="color:#000080;">[...] Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield, or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome.</span>"</p><p>The rigor of a focused, intellectually deep and sturdy software development declined with BillG's departure. No more technical assistants. No gauntlet of the BillG review. On his way out of the company, Bill anointed Ray to serve as <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/oct10/10-18steveb-mail.mspx">Chief Software Architect</a>. I don't think that was Ray's idea. In fact, I can only imagine him tilting his head and saying, "<span style="color:#000080;">Wha-?</span>" He didn't take a broad view of Microsoft at all, but rather focused on growing the Groove momentum into other areas for the future.</p><p>As part of any enduring legacy, it will be interesting to see what happens to Mr. Ozzie's groups over time, <i>Windows</i> Azure especially. And I can only hope to the Good Lord above that the "<span style="color:#000080;">I'm all in</span>" cloud claptrap takes a retirement, too. We get it. We have The Cloud as a platform. In my mind, it makes as much sense as saying "<span style="color:#000080;">Compilers! We're all in!</span>" or "<span style="color:#000080;">Layered Windows! We're all in!</span>"</p><p>I feel with Ray Ozzie's departure that Steve Ballmer has finally asserted his complete control over the company. We've had some house cleaning this year, ranging from Mr. Ozzie to Mr. Bach &amp; Mr. Allard to Technical Fellows to continued targeted layoffs. Perhaps this is due to the big, contemplative review Mr. Ballmer had with the Microsoft Board this year. Mr. Ballmer has hit the reset button. Do we have a Hail Mary pass, or is this Ballmer 2.0?</p><p>We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, here's hoping that the technical Presidents reporting to Mr. Ballmer can take up the custom of <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/does-microsoft-really-need-a-chief-software-architect/2492">intellectual rigor</a>. Because that is one custom we can't let decline anymore.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com211tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-74043327041198691232010-10-10T09:02:00.000-07:002010-10-10T09:06:02.529-07:00Microsoft Health Care Pops a Cap in One Big Week<p>Wow, what got in the corporate water for this week? Coming off the glow of last week's Company Meeting Koolaid we first got hit by the Goldman Sachs downgrade hang-over, then, to channel Mr. Ballmer, "<span style="color:#000080;">Boom-Boom-Boom!</span>"</p><ul><li>Health care changes on the way.</li><li>Live Labs gets shut down.</li><li>Technical Fellow Gary Flake, one of Microsoft few-TED stars, resigns.</li><li>Technical Fellow Brad Lovering leaves.</li><li>A glassdor.com survey that shows a lowly 50% approval rating for Mr. Ballmer.</li><li>IEB gets re-orged.</li><li>Massive gets shuttered (<i>like we were all looking forward to billboard ads while blowing crap up in Xbox</i>).</li><li>Adobe acquisition rumors.</li><li>Matt Rosoff leaves Directions on Microsoft.</li></ul><p>All this right on the eve of Windows Phone 7 being launched. Feels like one big... purge.</p><p>As for the Microsoft health plan changes: I haven't personally taken a bunch of time to figure it out yet. I had a fully scheduled Friday and I half listened to the Town Hall while working. My attention lapsed and the next thing I know they are talking about a Health Visa card against our Health Savings Plan we can use for paying our share of a visit to the doctor and roll-overs and portability. I realized I just missed some detailed stuff. Microsoft has set-up internal forums to help the employees figure this all out, so I encourage everyone to utilize that. But in the meantime, a commenter on the previous post added this:</p><blockquote><p><i>OK, I just watched the Health Care Town Hall replay. Hard thing to do early on a Saturday morning. </i></p><p><i>Let's see if I have this straight. If I go with the Health Savings Plan: </i></p><ol><li><i>All my preventive care is still free (to me). Annual physicals, dental checkups, immunizations, etc. - no charge. Wellness programs are actually beefed up even more. </i></li><li><i>For a family of 3+, the most we would have to pay out of pocket annually is $2500.00. </i></li><li><i>At the beginning of each year, MS will themselves add $3725 or thereabouts to my Health Savings Account...so MS is more than covering my $2500 obligation anyway. </i></li><li><i>Even if I have a catastrophic illness or injury, I'm still ahead $1225. </i></li></ol><p><i>I hope more insightful minds will follow up to correct any misunderstandings I have about this, but my takeaways from LisaB's deck are: </i></p><ol><li><i>Switch to HSP.</i></li><li><i>Lose both legs in a snowboarding accident. </i></li><li><i>Profit!</i></li></ol></blockquote><p>A follow-up to that:</p><blockquote><p><i>Not quite right on the healthcare costs. Worse case scenario for family of 3 is: </i></p><ul><li><i>All your preventive care costs are covered 100% by MSFT </i></li><li><i>You pay 100% of the first $3,750 in non-preventive costs. This is your deductible. </i></li><li><i>After your deductible is paid, you pay 10% of non-preventive costs. This is your co-pay. You pay a max of $2,500 in co-pays per year. </i></li><li><i>So your max annual costs are $3,750 + $2,500 = $6,250 </i></li><li><i>MSFT will pay $2,500 into your Health Savings Account each year, so your net out of pocket cost is $3,750. If you sign up for the HSP account in 2011-2013, then MSFT will contribute an additional "early adopter incentive" of $1,250. But after 2013, your max out-of-pocket costs are presumably back to $3,750 </i></li><li><i>You could pay that $3,750 out of tax-free contributions you make to your own HSA account, but then that money is locked away and can only be used for health expenses. If you don't want your money locked away then you have to pay with after-tax dollars. </i></li><li><i>In order to come up with $3,750 in after-tax dollars, you'll need to earn about $5,000 in pre-tax dollars. </i></li></ul><p><i>So, in the worse-case scenario this is equivalent to a pay cut of $5,000 per year. Maybe not too bad for someone making $200k, but that would be a 10% pay cut for someone making $50k. </i></p></blockquote><p>Will increasing health care costs follow Ms. Brummel's charted path? It's interesting that the excise portion of the future ended up being a small little bump. Next: wellness - excellent idea. I love ensuring that we're all well and stay healthy upfront. But that includes affecting the ecosystem in which we live and ensuring people actually put time towards preventative health and making a place like Redmond a healthy place to live. </p><blockquote><p><i>Sidebar</i>: Just to whine a bit: for self-proclaimed bicycle capital, this is one hell of a scary place to ride a bike. Actually ensuring there's an infrastructure from the suburbs-to-work to safely ride a bike to encourage healthy living is some local influence Microsoft should have.</p><p><i>Sidebar two</i>: Via <a href="http://twitter.com/Carnage4Life">DareO</a>: <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/10/09/10073622.aspx">The exciting nature of being ordinary - Sorting it all Out</a> - one snippet: "<span style="color:#000080;">Microsoft now looks <b>ordinary</b> to me.</span>"</p></blockquote><p>I'm very supportive of whatever they can do about wellness (<i>though the paranoid side of me hasn't liked the 'Know Your Numbers' campaign - who gets access to my numbers? Curiously, this extra overhead might prevent me from getting my flu shot this year</i>).</p><p>Do I think the health changes will affect recruiting? Probably not. Do I think it will affect retention? Yes. See the above "<span style="color:#000080;">ordinary</span>" link. If other tech companies hold steady on their coverage then they close a big gap to hiring experienced people at Microsoft. Look, once you have a family and one or two big boo-boos (<i>medical term</i>) you realize: "<span style="color:#000080;">holy crap, we are so fortunate... I love this company for caring for me and my family so well!</span>" It's no golden handcuff, but it still anchors you. </p><p>Anchors away.</p><p>Given cut-backs like this, whether out of cost-saving necessity or not, the Senior Leadership Team has to realize there's zero tolerance now for major money screw-ups like KIN and Massive. The bumbling flushing away of millions or billions of dollars is going to be compared directly to the reduction in benefits: if this company was actually run by people who knew how to consistently achieve profits, we wouldn't be looking at these losses and saying, "<span style="color:#000080;">Yep, that could have paid for US health-care for a while...</span>"</p><p>All-in-all, though, I think (<i>not having immersed myself in the details</i>) our coverage remains a better-than-average benefit. And as long as we don't have to revert back to the Pacific Care Primary Care / Referrals model (<i>talk about a time-waster during work-hours</i>) I'm personally satisfied.</p><p>Regarding Live Labs being shutdown: so what's left that Ray Ozzie is running? FUSE labs? You know, the people who blew their internal reputation by hijacking and hacking the Office Web Apps for <a href="http://docs.com/">http://docs.com/</a> ? I would not be surprised to see Ray finding a new endeavor sooner than later. First Mesh, now Live Labs.</p><p>As for Live Labs going into Bing... what the? I've watched a lot of curious hiring and initiatives at Bing. All the best wishes to you Bingsters, but you're beginning to resemble an organization that has way too many people and now you're just creating work to keep them busy. We've seen this before, and curiously, with some of the same leadership that's in Bing now. Better to put them on a productive profit making endeavor or risk having them cut loose.</p><p>From the comments:</p><blockquote><p><i>Let's see if the latest round of "This will bolster the stock price works." IEB re-org and benefit changes. Doubt it. </i></p></blockquote><p>Checked with some friends in the Interactive Entertainment Business and they glumly report "<span style="color:#000080;">We're getting Sinofskied.</span>" (<i>Not reporting to Sinofsky, but picking up the same kind of management structure.</i>) Ah. I've always been curious if the Sinofsky model holds up in a creative group. Now we have one big example in the making.</p><p>Looping back to Mr. Kaplan's <i>ordinary</i> comment: Mr. Matt Rosoff's <a href="http://mattydread.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/my-decade-at-irections-on-microsoft/">parting post on leaving Directions on Microsoft</a> expresses it in a different way: </p><blockquote><p><i>In Seattle, Microsoft was where the all the best and brightest worked, had worked, or wanted to work. People even pronounced it with a particular tone of voice, hushed but awful, like people back East say "Harvard." All-caps. "Yeah, he owns a coffee shop now. But he used to work at MICROSOFT." [...] it's not MICROSOFT anymore. It's just Microsoft. Even in Seattle.</i></p></blockquote><p>How do you feel about that? You're not ordinary and you don't live an ordinary life. You don't expect to do ordinary work for an ordinary company, do you? What needs to change?</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com376tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-83448675771945369962010-10-06T12:48:00.000-07:002010-10-06T12:49:53.203-07:00A Case of the Microsoft Downgrade Blues<p>Oh, great, we've hit a case of the downgrades as a sequel to the quarterly results that no-one bought.</p><p>Specifically, Ms. Friar at Goldman Sachs downgraded us with a variety of reasons and expectations. From Mr. Todd Bishop: <a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/goldman_downgrades_microsoft_says_change_in_cource.html">Goldman downgrades Microsoft, makes case for major overhaul</a>. Snippet of some gold Goldman Sachs from there:</p><div id="container" jquery1286335399392="10"><div id="columnsWrap" jquery1286335399392="9"><div id="twoColumnWrap" jquery1286335399392="8"><div id="column2"><div class="postWrap clearfix"><div class="byLineWrap"><div class="articleWrap clearfix"><blockquote><p><i>They call for three steps to "unlock value" in Microsoft's shares.</i></p><i></i><blockquote><i>(1) <strong>A materially increased dividend beyond the recent 23% increase</strong>, moving Microsoft into the top 20 dividend-paying companies in the S&amp;P 500 in terms of dividend yield. We believe this would open the door to a larger investor base and keep the company more diligent from a spending perspective. (2) <strong>A coherent consumer strategy</strong> that could involve paring back investments and/or divesting more peripheral assets such as gaming. (3) <strong>Market leadership in Cloud</strong>. Microsoft has a strong portfolio of enterprise data center assets and could become a leader in Cloud deployments, but the competitive environment remains highly in flux, with Microsoft still not a clear "winner," in our view.</i></blockquote></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p>Flashbacks to <a href="http://msftextrememakeover.blogspot.com/">MSFTExtremeMakeover's</a> last blog entry: <a href="http://msftextrememakeover.blogspot.com/2008/06/eight-years-of-wrongness.html">Eight Years of Wrongness</a>. Upgrade the "<span style="color:#000080;">Eight</span>" to a "<span style="color:#000080;">Ten</span>".</p><p>The more interesting follow-up by Mr. Bishop is adding up the numbers in Goldman Sachs' assessment comes up with a $30 share price vs. Goldman Sachs' downgrade to $28: <a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/10/valuing_microsoft_goldman_sachs_puts_a_number_on_each_division.html">Numbers How Goldman Sachs values each Microsoft division</a>.</p><p>Now then, if this report was dated, say, 2006 I would be remarking at the exceptional smarts and bravery of Goldman Sachs to step forward from the meek institutional investor crowd that have been giving Microsoft a free ride. Instead, now that the farm's barn doors have been wide opened for a while, Ms. Friar is walking around saying "<span style="color:#000080;">Without preventative re-enforcement and diligence of door utilization, it's possible for the horses to escape from here.</span>" </p><p>The timing is just peculiar, and is resulting in the resumption of resignation requests for Mr. Ballmer: <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/39518589?__source=yahoo%7Cheadline%7Cquote%7Ctext%7C&amp;par=yahoo">CNBC's Fast Money Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Needs to Go Analyst</a>. Also, Ms. Victoria Barret follows-up with <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/victoriabarret/2010/10/05/goldman-to-microsoft-do-something/?partner=yahootix">Goldman to Microsoft Do Something</a> - and reflects on her summer story <a href="http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/outfront-microsoft-excel-ballmer-computers-break-it-up.html">Time to Break Up Microsoft</a>.</p><p>Sorry Mr. Institutional Investor, your voice was needed years ago. You have been complicit and ineffective during the worst of it. What's the agenda here? It would have been better for a coalition of institutional investors to speak with one voice, vs. Goldman Sachs. Because... given how Goldman Sachs has proven itself untrustworthy in attempting to destroy the American economy for its own fortune (<i>cue their extended pinky touching edge of mouth</i>), you have to wonder if they have their own greedy agenda - are they betting against the Microsoft stock and expect to benefit from its near-term decline? Or hope to force in a Neutron-Jack CEO to wipe out half the employees and all non-profitable groups?</p><p>Or do they expect within a year for Microsoft to have had a very successful consumer cycle and then reward that with an upgrade, in the meantime having had bought up a good bit of cheap stock? Are they looking for quick short-term gains vs. a thoughtful consideration of long-term growth? I feel a baleful gaze cast on us.</p><p>And mainly: it's a very poor matter of timing for a break-up. We're about to have a mobile phone come out that actually binds the companies divisions far closer than ever before: Office, Windows Live, Xbox Live, Bing, and Dev Div: this damn thing is the antidote for break-up talk. WP7 wouldn't be <i>impossible</i> to create with a break-up, but it'd be exceptionally <i>difficult</i>. WP7 is pulling together huge resources that none of our direct competitors have.</p><p>Now then: stepping back to Classic-Mini mode. Would I like to spin off parts of Microsoft. Oh yes. Less money wasted and less people? It's a Win-Win two-fer. How about our health solutions group to start with? Other Fools: Online Services Division: <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/10/06/microsoft-time-for-a-break-up.aspx">Microsoft Time for a Break-Up?</a></p><p>I think it would be healthy to actually encourage spin offs. Give new groups funding for two years and then assess whether this will continue to be a Microsoft endeavor or not. If not, the group can spin off as their own new company, with Microsoft as a stake-holder, and go their own way. So if Midori is not in our future then tip the hat to them and let them take off on their own.</p><p>Back to Mr. Ballmer. If you want to end on a high-note, now's the time. Mr. Ballmer can declare victory in the continued success of Windows 7, the innovation of Bing that's rattled Google, the alignment of products around the cloud, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7. It's going to be a while until the stars set themselves up like this again. Better to go out with victory than be chased out of Salmonberg by a bunch of fed-up institutional investors wanting real dividends and stock performance. You know: shareholder value.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com128tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-15204273743018656152010-09-28T21:33:00.000-07:002010-09-28T21:34:34.544-07:00Microsoft Company Meeting 2010<p><span style="font-size:6;">Best. Company Meeting. Ever.<span style="color:#c0c0c0;">*</span></span></p><p> </p><p>(<i>*excluding the classic Company Meetings, especially the one where Cheap Trick played afterward.</i>)</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com168tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-4344632059723428302010-09-27T08:10:00.000-07:002010-09-27T08:13:36.680-07:00Here Comes Microsoft Company Meeting 2010!<p>Hello, SafeCo Field! Another year, another Microsoft Company Meeting!</p><p>Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that I'm a big fan of the Company Meeting, though I have to admit this is the first year I've thought of skipping and just go out for some beers instead. Well, instead I'll peruse the past and conjure up some enthusiasm:</p><ul><li>2009: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2009/09/six-hopes-for-this-years-microsoft.html">Mini-Microsoft Six Hopes for This Year's Microsoft Company Meeting</a> + <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2009/09/quick-thoughts-on-microsoft-2009.html">Mini-Microsoft Quick Thoughts on the Microsoft 2009 Company Meeting</a></li><li>2008: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2008/09/microsoft-company-meeting-2008.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting 2008</a></li><li>2007: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2007/09/microsoft-company-meeting-ahoy.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting Ahoy!</a> + <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2007/09/microsoft-company-meeting-2007.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting 2007</a></li><li>2006: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/09/microsoft-company-meeting-2006.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting 2006</a></li><li>2005: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/09/microsoft-company-meeting-im-looking.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting... I'm looking for some dates!</a> + <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/09/microsoft-company-meeting-2005.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting 2005</a></li><li>2004: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2004/08/microsoft-company-meeting-2004.html">Mini-Microsoft Microsoft Company Meeting 2004</a> (<i>the non-meeting Company Meeting</i>)</li></ul><p>Alright, I'm in. So what is there to talk about going into the Company Meeting?</p><p><b>No Elop</b>: yeah! So no repeat of last year's late-night telemarketing demo unintentional-skit. In fact, we might have one big demo cut altogether...</p><p><b>Unique Demos</b>: anyone who repackages a demo from earlier in the year should just get boo'd off-stage. Any demos should be new and quick quick quick.</p><p><b>Dreading Mundie</b>: please spare us. If the Company Meeting had a chatter meter for when the audience stopped paying attention and started talking with their seatmates, this would be the peak.</p><p><b>WP7 Microsoftie Demos</b>: I think it would be sweet and smart to have some of the top-notch Windows Phone 7 apps created by Microsofties - under the application developer program to support employee apps - get up on stage and do 1 minute demos of their apps. Microsoft exists only due to the great work of the geeks who work there - celebrate it.</p><p><b>Financials</b>: a nice review of *profits* from the various groups.</p><p><b>Stealth Layoffs</b>: are we done yet? I'm all for making Microsoft a smaller company, but not at the morale busting cost of layoffs lurking around campus like the Spanish Inquisition. It will eventually take a toll on people considering moving to groups that are in a start-up mode with unclear Senior Leadership Team support.</p><p><b>LisaB</b>: she tried something big, Ballmer didn't go for it, and then she faded and became busy with layoffs. And her basketball team. Ms. Brummel kicked off another Listening Tour this year. Now would be a good tie to roll-up any insights and results. What is my dream result? <b>Team based awards</b>. And it's pretty simple.</p><p>Every VP-level person has to stack rank their organizational teams, top to bottom. For Sinofsky-fied product teams, this would be at the Dev Manager / Test Manager / General Program Manager triad level, typically defining a product team such that every product team get a rating. Every team gets ranked just like individuals and the team gets a rating just like you and me: Exceeded / Achieved / Underperformed and 20% / 70% / 10%. This - along with the concise VP-level written evaluations - gets pasted into every team member's annual review and part of the overall bonus / stock compensation now comes out of this result.</p><p>The reasoning: strong, well-run and results-producing organizations should be rewarded. And poorly run, low WHI organizations should be disinfected with some mighty strong corporate sunlight. When it comes to informationals with new teams, you can ask: "<span style="color:#000080;">What was the team's rating last year?</span>" in addition to MSPoll results.</p><p><b>Reviews</b>: as long as we're on LisaB and HR: how about them reviews this year? At least we had merit increases back. If you're feeling a sharp-blow about your results and you're up for an interesting point of view (<i>along with a bunch of other good things</i>), I suggest reading Philip Su's goodbye note for leaving Microsoft and joining Facebook: <a href="http://worldofsu.com/philipsu/?page_id=193">Goodbye Microsoft, Hello Facebook! « The World As Best As I Remember It</a>. (<i>you might remember Mr. Su from the high-profile post-Vista blog-post <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/philipsu/archive/2006/06/14/631438.aspx">Broken Windows Theory</a></i>). That whole post is worth discussing soon. As is the always popular observation: if you're not happy with Microsoft, there's abundant opportunity around you. Try checking it out.</p><p><b>Ballmer vs. The League of Meh</b>. Maybe because we have a lull with our major product groups either coming in for a landing (<i>WP7, Natal</i>) or just taking off (<i>Office 15, Windows 8</i>) that my circle of friends have hit a patch of corporate ennui like never before. True, some of them work on products way on the fringe but others work on some pretty core products and they are feeling... full of meh.</p><p>I still believe that Microsoft has turned the corner. Or, as someone else wrote this week, it has turned the tanker: <a href="http://newsgrange.com/the-microsoft-tanker-has-turned-and-you-ignore-it-at-your-own-peril/">The Microsoft Tanker Has Turned and You Ignore it at Your Own Peril</a>. Why this meh? First of all, the stock: if you are investing in the success of Microsoft, you cannot underestimate the power of the stock to energize the employees to create break-through results. We had great quarterly earnings and what did the financial market say? "<span style="color:#000080;">Meh.</span>" Maybe <i>they</i> started it. Part of it I'm sure is that even though we've turned the corner, sometimes we screw up and spill the Big Gulp in our lap and skip the curb and take out a mailbox (<i>KIN</i>). That startling inconsistency to deliver focused results I'm sure puts fear and doubt into Wall Street, and if there's one combination that Wall Street underperforms dealing with it's fear and doubt.</p><p>After the dismissive reaction to our last quarterly results, we had article after article written about Microsoft's Lost Decade, covering how poorly Mr. Ballmer and The Board have been doing running Microsoft and calls for their dismissal. That's not cool, and if anything, it's draining. Under that context, to see Mr. Ballmer screaming and running around high-fiving a bunch of MBAs riding our two cash cows until the milk's dried up is challenging to your self-motivation.</p><p>Going back to my friends: some are very loose in their seat, and others have already left to enjoy unfettered engineering (<i>one in particular happy to realize how much unexpected joy results in the 'make Partner or take the 10%' cloud going away</i>).</p><p>I expect a CEO like Mr. Ballmer to revisit his previous Company Meeting talks and discuss where those ideas are now. Some of those ideas were quite exciting, but went... where? Otherwise, without the follow-through I guess this is another throw-away show that's in-between me and my beer.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com74tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-47374985529592360092010-09-17T07:40:00.000-07:002010-09-17T07:47:06.768-07:00Microsoft Annual Review 2010<p>Just a quick post: some of you enjoy posting information relevant to your review, both looking at numbers and a critical view of the message given to you. It has started to happen a bit in the last post (<span style="font-style: italic;">I'm going through the comments now</span>) so I'm just going to capitulate (<span style="font-style: italic;">again</span>) and put this small post up for the 2010 Annual Review share and compare. Yes, this is a bit late.
</p><p>Oh, and obviously grab yourself a few grains of salt. Folks seem to like this format:</p><ul><li>L# (promo'd?)</li><li>(Exceeded|Achieved|Underperformed) / (20|70|10)</li><li>Bonus $K</li><li>Stock $K</li><li>Merit % (/Promo %)</li><li>Optional comments about Division / Group, discipline, impression of review</li></ul><p><span style="font-style: italic;">Administrivia</span>: yeah, that was another long pause moderating and posting and all that. I was on an extended vacation that continued as an extended vacation of the mind. My apologies. I've got at least one short post in mind before our Company Meeting 2010.
</p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com383tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-31677391673867842982010-07-22T07:40:00.000-07:002010-07-22T07:42:09.083-07:00Microsoft FY10Q4 Results<p><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/fy10/earn_rel_q4_10.mspx">FY10Q4 Microsoft earnings</a> are upon us. So, what's been going on since last we met over the quarterly results?</p><ul><li>The KIN phone collapse put WP7's future in doubt. Would WP7 meet the same fate? Is it under the same level of mismanagement? Fortunately, some fairly positive takes on pre-release WP7 have been coming out ahead of earnings to shore up confidence and excitement.</li><li>Market Cap - yes, Apple passed us by and there was an abundance of articles and postings questioning just how much longer Microsoft would have to endure Mr. Ballmer as CEO (<i>hint: a long loooooong time</i>).</li><li>Itsy-bitsy-layoff-committees: targeted small layoffs to kick of FY11 team budgets. If they are that low key and only disclosed on some random bit of the blogosphere, do they really amount to much accountability on Microsoft's sake? Again, our contingency hiring is out of this world so it's not like we're saving a bunch of money - we just have folks on the payroll we can easily cut loose as needed.</li></ul><p>What kind of questions might be / should be posed during the earnings call?</p><ul><li>Dates: firm dates for WP7 devices and Kinect and associated Kinect titles beyond the kind-of-interesting launch titles.</li><li>Win7 + Office 2010: are the cash cows still, err, bringing home the bacon?</li><li>Bing / Ad-center: is Bing on the upswing? Is Bing / Ad-Center doing anything more than eating the bacon that our cash cows bring home?</li><li>Legal: it's been very quiet on the European Union front. Office 2010 was released without a single investigatory squeak, as far as I know. Is this all behind us for now? That would be great.</li><li>WP7: application developers in the queue? We need to re-enforce the cool apps that we'll have ready when WP7 is launched. In a move that has totally delighted me, Microsoft is giving every employee the ability to write and deploy WP7 applications (<i>and, what, ability to get a device at launch, too?</i>) - wow! Now's the time to truly show off your stuff and write for WP7 and get your app out the door.</li></ul><p>The glow of Windows 7 has dimmed and Office 2010 and the VS2010 eco-system need to pick up the steam as we head to WP7 and Kinect launch. Apple is rolling in the moolah being a content delivery channel and our story, other than some Xbox features, is still pretty fuzzy. For instance: Windows Media Center is one of those crown jewels we've let plop out of the crown and get kicked around the court. I love WMC but it seems to be a neglected feature, caught in the chop between E&amp;D / Zune and Windows. After a phone, it's the next experience we should bring out some reference hardware for to easily DVR HD channels off the air and plug right into your HDMI system and watch it go.</p><p>My usual suspects for earnings discussion:</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox">Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News</a></li><li><a href="http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/">Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog</a></li><li><a href="http://twitter.com/josephtartakoff">Mr. Joseph Tartakoff</a> somewhere within <a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/">paidContent.org</a>.</li></ul><p>(<i>I'll update the post later if there are interesting developments from the earnings release.</i>)</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> <a title="http://technorati.com/tag/msft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/msft">MSFT</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com520tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-61680546589466249672010-07-06T20:07:00.000-07:002010-07-06T20:09:41.757-07:00The KIN-fusing KIN-clusion to KIN, and FY11 Microsoft Layoff Rumors<p>Get out of the way Microsoft Bob, you have a replacement that Microsoft's Gen-Y employees can claim for their own! It's spelled K-I-N.</p><p>KIN's demise can't surprise anyone. When I looked at the phone's features, I thought: alright, an incomplete Facebook experience that I cannot improve by installing new applications... and I pay $$$ through the nose for a plan. But I've got a green dot and KIN Studio... maybe that will be enough to sell enough units to justify the Danger acquisition and the person-years of work behind getting KIN out. What the hell where all those people doing? I couldn't imagine anyone wanting the resulting iffy feature-phone at a smartphone cost, but KIN wasn't made for me. I was willing to let the market be the judge of KIN.</p><p>Verdict? Guilty, guilty, guilty.</p><p>The original Zune/Pink phone had interesting momentum but it all got squandered. What's the one ThinkWeek paper I want to read this year? <i>Lessons Learned from Microsoft KIN and How Microsoft Must Change Product Development</i>. You can't have a failure like this without examining it and then sharing what went wrong, all with respect to vision, execution, and leadership. How big was the original iPhone team? How big was the KIN team? Why did one result in a lineage of amazingly successful devices in the marketplace, and the other become a textbook extended definition for "dud" ?</p><p>Interesting comments:</p><blockquote><p><i>All I can say as a former Windows Mobile employee who is now working for a competitor in the phone space is that this is good news for the rest of us. [...] Personally I quit because of the frustrating management and autocratic decision style of Terry Myerson and Andrew Lees. The only exec in the team myself and other folks respcted was Tom Gibbons who is now sidelined. Lees and Myerson don't know consumer products or phones. Gibbons at least knows consumer product development. We often talk about how Andrew Lees still has a job but Microsoft's loss is a gain for the rest of us. </i></p></blockquote><p>And</p><blockquote><p><i>And now Kin is killed *after* it has shipped in June 2010. You can bet Andy was involved in the development of Kin, the partnership agreements with the OEM, Verizon and most importantly the "ship it" approvals all along the way. And Microsoft discovers its a bad idea after it blows up in the broad market. Absolutely no thanks to any pro-active decision making on Andy's part. </i></p><p><i>Now there is spin that Andy killed kin to put all the wood behind Windows Phone 7. Er, the guy was in charge for two years of Kin development. He could have made this decision far earlier. </i></p><p><i>Similarly Windows Phone 7 has two years of development under his watch. Based on his past performance, 99% chance this is also going to be a total catastrophe. It further doesn't help that much of the Windows Phone 7 leadership team was kicked out of Windows when they screwed up Vista.</i></p></blockquote><p>And finally, one Danger-employee's point of view of why they became demotivated:</p><blockquote><p><i>To the person who talked about the unprofessional behavior of the Palo Alto Kin (former Danger team), I need to respond because I was one of them.</i></p><p><i>You are correct, the remaining Danger team was not professional nor did we show off the amazing stuff we had that made Danger such a great place. But the reason for that was our collective disbelief that we were working in such a screwed up place. Yes, we took long lunches and we sat in conference rooms and went on coffee breaks and the conversations always went something like this..."Can you believe that want us to do this?" Or "Did you hear that IM was cut, YouTube was cut? The App store was cut?" "Can you believe how mismanaged this place is?" "Why is this place to dysfunctional??"</i></p><p><i>Please understand that we went from being a high functioning, extremely passionate and driven organization to a dysfunctional organization where decisions were made by politics rather than logic.</i></p><p><i>Consider this, in less than 10 years with 1/10 of the budget Microsoft had for PMX, we created a fully multitasking operating system, a powerful service to support it, 12 different device models, and obsessed and supportive fans of our product. While I will grant that we did not shake up the entire wireless world (ala iPhone) we made a really good product and were rewarded by the incredible support of our userbase and our own feelings of accomplishment. If we had had more time and resources, we would of come out with newer versions, supporting touch screens and revamping our UI. But we ran out of time and were acquired and look at the results. A phone that was a complete and total failure. We all knew (Microsoft employees included) that is was a lackluster device, lacked the features the market wanted and was buggy with performance problems on top of it all.</i></p><p><i>When we were first acquired, we were not taking long lunches and coffee breaks. We were committed to help this Pink project out and show our stuff. But when our best ideas were knocked down over and over and it began to dawn on us that we were not going to have any real affect on the product, we gave up. We began counting down to the 2 year point so we could get our retention bonuses and get out.</i></p><p><i>I am sorry you had to witness that amazing group behave so poorly. Trust me, they were (and still are) the best group of people ever assembled to fight the cellular battle. But when the leaders are all incompetent, we just wanted out. </i></p></blockquote><p>I guess we need another ThinkWeek paper on how to successfully acquire companies, too. Between this and aQuantive, we only excel at taking the financial boon of Windows and Office and giving it over to leadership that totally blows it down the drain like an odds-challenged drunk in Vegas. And the shareholders continue to suffer in silence. And the drunks are looking for their next cash infusion.</p><p><b>Dude, Where's Ray?</b> You see more and more yearning for the days of BillG at the helm, perhaps because at least he was an uber geek that could drill your team's presentation like nobody's business and understand what your team was doing. And occasionally get enthralled by technology choices that would confound your average user (<i>WinFS</i>). Ray was supposed to serve as a replacement architect at Microsoft's technical helm, yet his impact seems to be superficial (<i>and pretty disparaged if you chat with any leader in the company</i>). Here's a snippet of a great comment about Ray and his impact at Microsoft:</p><blockquote><p><i>The problem is, Ray doesn't see himself as the "Chief Software Architect" of the company. He sees himself as the "Chief Visionary Officer" (to borrow someone's phrase from early comments). He sees his job as being the person who regularly kicks "old" Microsoft in the butt to wake them up to whats going on in the world. </i></p><p><i>All of his behavior lines up with this: His correcting of Ballmer (in public!); His team's building Mesh, an expensive, buzz-generating, science-project app beloved by those who know about it, but irrelevant to those who don't (which is 99+% of the planet); More recently, his team's building of Docs.com -- another expensive, buzz-generating app that has no business model and no path to ever having one (if you need an indication of how pointless an exercise docs.com is, just look at the visitor trends for it since launch: <a href="http://trends.google.com/websites?q=docs.com">http://trends.google.com/websites?q=docs.com</a>). </i></p><p><i>Meanwhile, Ozzie has made enemies of most of the leaders of the actual products that pay for his "Labs". He's made no secret of the fact that he thinks that Windows is run terribly, or that Office is dead technology. Behind closed doors, he is openly dispariging of Microsoft development practices and Microsoft technology. His efforts to build product display a stunning lack of a caring about how much things cost to run, or whether they will ever make money. To my knowledge, he doesn't care in the slightest about the enterprise businesses at the company.</i></p></blockquote><p><b>Dude, Where's My Job?</b> Folks have been talking about ongoing stealth layoffs and the impending July FY11 layoffs reacting to teams with reduced budgets. I've scanned some various HR calendars and found some interesting appointments more around next week vs. this week, but the layoff rumors have spilled over beyond here and into TechFlash: <a href="http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/07/rumblings_of_more_microsoft_layoffs.html">Microsoft pruning more jobs</a>. A follow-up by Ms. Mary-Jo Foley: <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/more-microsoft-job-cuts-coming/6753">More Microsoft job cuts coming ZDNet</a>. So I'd expect more news next week than this week, but one commenter has noted:</p><blockquote><p><i>Layoffs confirmed for tomorrow. I see long meetings booked by HR-types in Lincoln Square and RedWest-C. Didn't go through all the calendars for you main-campus types.</i></p></blockquote><p>If Microsoft is doing this to appear fiscally responsible, they really can't tell just this half of the story. The other half of the story is the number of contingent staff positions, which if you open up Headtrax for yourself to investigate be prepared to tell Elizabeth you're coming to join her, because it about gave me a mild heart-attack.</p><p>If you learn anything, please comment regarding the group and the size of the hit and any impression about the folks impacted (<i>e.g., 10%'ers, long-term employees, etc</i>).</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com776tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-66686613386882621732010-05-30T16:05:00.000-07:002010-05-30T16:07:56.584-07:00Thoughts on Wrapping Up Microsoft's FY10<p>Well, here's to wrapping up FY10. The kick-off of the Annual Review Season is our long, long, sloppy kiss goodnight to the fiscal year that was. </p><p>How are various things wrapping up?</p><p><b>Entertainment and Devices</b>: with Bach and Allard out of the picture the E&amp;D snow globe got a shaking where it's not clear how things are going to change. I was surprised at the number of pro-Bach comments in the last post, and a number of commenters believed that Mr. Bach had what it took to be the next Microsoft CEO. I respect your opinion, but I have to admit I did my best "<span style="color:#000080;">ba-roo?</span>" reading that.</p><p>Regarding Mr. Bach's departure: you can't call it accountability. Accountability would have been right after the red-ring o' death $1,000,000,000USD write-off. Come on, when senior leaders get together to consider what kind of emergent opportunities to get into, it's all about the billion dollar market. Perhaps they wrongly assumed that it exclusively meant income. It's pleasant that we have an entertainment presence like the Xbox and that Sony took a hard one on the chin, but did it really need to take that much money away from the shareholders and tarnish our reputation so much? And leave so much more unfulfilled around TV media entertainment that is getting rapidly covered by competitors?</p><p>Given the swirling flakes in the E&amp;D snow globe, does E&amp;D need to be Sinofsky'd? Discipline can be a good thing. You don't want every project to be like Forza. Willy-nilly feature development without stringent peer reviews and pre-checkin testing: dumb. Agile? So is using two hands instead of one to smear poo all over a wall. You've got twice the mess to clean-up. Those days should be behind us. More than anything, E&amp;D needs leadership that oozes passion for everyday joys and who show up late Friday afternoon to play with what's new this past week and give praise and feedback. It needs joy and delight and laughter. And while running the trains on time is good for everyone, it doesn't need the stoic, passionless, data-driven rectilinear styling of a Sinofsky org's Switzerland.</p><p>No, rather than Switzerland E&amp;D needs <span alt="I know I'm mixing train metaphors here with the trains running on time and Italy and Benito - but Benito never made the trains run on time, so... there.">Italy</span>. It needs curves and "<span style="color:#000080;">oooo's!</span>" and non-linear surprises. Sinofsky, I'd say, is on a three-release effort with Windows so he's busy anyways. I can't imagine if he was brought in to help pull things around, though, that it would go very well... I imagine his lieutenants first job would be to put the ribbon into the Zune client app and Media Center and then try to figure how to wedge it into the Xbox dashboard. Nanites would start flowing through everyone's bloodstream, and their skin would turn sickly pale... the trains would run ontime, just to dull destinations.</p><p><i><b>Kin</b></i>: we put a lot of time + effort around Danger and producing the Kin (<i>well, maybe more effort could have been spent on keeping the services running</i>). Kin is not made for me or my social circle, so I can't judge it as a device. Sales will be the deciding factor here. And I'm sure when the first quarter numbers are released, we'll just say, "<span style="color:#000080;">Well, we have an update to the Kin feature phone that we are sure will increase uptake significantly.</span>" Like fully supporting Facebook and Twitter features. I love the green dot, though.</p><p>And I do like Kin Studio, which I think pushes Kin over the top for some Millennials. If Kin Studio could be adapted soon to be a feature available for every WP7 phone user then we'd really surprise and delight potential phone users.</p><p><i><b>WP7</b></i>: As for the WP7 phone: goodness. I'm hoping it's great and I like what I see. I like that a number of 3rd parties are already in the tube to deliver apps. I have sore glutes, though, from all the WP7 demos I see: every time a WP7 PM says, "<span style="color:#000080;">Let me try this</span>" my buns seize up hoping that it goes smoothly this time vs. the PM mumbling something about regressions in the latest build. There's still plenty of runway to go and time to fix all the various bugs and oddities, but it makes me apprehensive regarding the overall quality bar and wondering, "<span style="color:#000080;">How did this go in so busted to begin with?</span>" Several someones being agile, no doubt.</p><p>While we've been chasing the iPhone hockey puck (<i>of what, two releases ago?</i>) we risk that the real puck of today is Android. Maybe. The Android ecosystem is still too chaotic, but its potential is showing (<i>thank you, Vic</i>). We have to not only have great 3rd party apps on release but also show commitment in having our own series of Microsoft applications constantly going out of the door. For important as the mobile platform is, it's surprising how little we're invested in developing our own series of applications for it, hoping that developers will meander over to our party.</p><p>And as the mobile application platform grows up into more interesting devices, the Windows hardware platform is growing downwards to meet it. There's a collision of development philosophy dead ahead and it needs to be solved this summer, not within years. Microsoft seriously needs to woo developers, and if you're giving them an ever-changing flowchart of constantly updated development platforms when the competitors have straight lines, you've lost a big campaign and potentially the war. Windows, E&amp;D, and DevDiv must be forced to reconcile the future of application development and distribution from mobile to client to cloud by Microsoft's CEO, or start FY11 with leadership that can.</p><p><b><i>Natal</i></b>: I'll get a Natal device when it comes out, though I don't know how much I'll use it in the cozy space I have our Xbox in. I'm not redecorating for Natal, which means every time I boot it up I will look around at all the various potential ankle and knee injuries. It might be worth it, though, if I can swing a light-saber, force-push, and even wave my hand for a Jedi mind-trick. But not for playing paint kick-ball.</p><p>A big Windows opportunity for Natal: some smarty plugs it into his desktop and a driver installs and Win7 magically lights up for Natal interaction. Word spreads. Win7 works with Natal and you can go all Minority Report now with your laptop and desktop! That's a Jobs-worthy show-off moment: "<span style="color:#000080;">Oh, yes, an iPad. How nostalgically quaint to have a device you have to actually smear your fingers around the surface to do something with. Now, watch my Cheetos plastered fingers bring up Media Center to play some recorded World Cup! And after that, I'll navigate the universe with Worldwide Telescope!</span>"</p><p><b>Pop a cap in your ass</b>: which by cap, I mean Market Cap and the reflections and abundant free advice issued forth when Apple passed Microsoft with-respect-to Market Capitalization this past week. A lot of focus came down on Mr. Ballmer, who shrugged it off as much as he shrugs off the lost decade of MSFT stock price. A nice case study of attitude begets results. While Microsoft has its three-screened head in The Cloud (<i>can't wait to see that marketing campaign [eye-roll]</i>) Apple continues a consumer-love affair of joyous design and content delivery. One bit of free advice I naturally loved: <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2010/05/28/what-will-it-take-to-save-microsoft.aspx">What Will It Take to Save Microsoft (MSFT)</a> - a snippet from the end:</p><blockquote><p><i>And I see no end to the misery. Microsoft should learn from longtime brother-in-arms Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), whose CEO Paul Otellini has cut a complicated beast down to the operations that really matter. That's the kind of sugar-free medicine it would take to save Microsoft from itself, and of course, something that drastic will never happen.</i></p><p><i>What a shame.</i></p></blockquote><p>Yes, we need our Neutron Jack at this point. We have our supposedly endangered cash cows and then a lot of products and operations clinging on. Many of which that would never exist in a sane company. Spin-off those groups to live or die on their own, with Microsoft owning appropriate stock such that if their survival instinct kicks in and they flourish, it will be a nice hefty return. You also have to realize that product groups are way overstaffed and just need engineers, in this day and age, that can do it all vs. being silo'd into their coding, testing, or spec'ing narrow band. Specialization is not sustainable. And the Partner system needs to be nuked away: more and more it's leading to bad short-term shiny decisions meant to make Partner. Well, this list goes on. I think our next CEO comes from the outside, because only an outsider at this point can scrub the company clean and ensure that the corporate DNA is rewritten.</p><p><b>Stealth Layoffs</b>: comments here for a while have been saying don't expect anymore large layoffs but do expect ongoing stealth layoffs, the kind that don't trigger the WARN act, let alone publicity. If you see your leadership meeting with HR far more frequently than usual, should you be nervous? Well, first step, ask what's up. If the answer is unsatisfying and doesn't ring true: yep, be nervous, especially as FY10 wraps up and new FY11 reduced budgets kick in.</p><p>If you or your group has indeed been affected, please, if you will, share as much as you can.</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com581tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7555958.post-75734430220566100682010-05-25T08:48:00.000-07:002010-05-25T08:58:06.303-07:00Microsoft's Robbie Bach Retires... Whoo-Hoo! (And J is gone, too.)<p>Just a quick celebration of this morning's news: Robbie Bach is retiring from Microsoft.</p><p>I'm so happy for him. And for Entertainment and Devices. And Microsoft.</p><p>This is a great opportunity for E&amp;D to evolve and restructure. And, of course, a great opportunity to really screw up who to put in charge and such.</p><p>And yes, J Allard is out of here as well. Don Mattrick and Andy Lees step up. Also: David Treadwell side steps. And Office shuffles up a little bit.</p><p>What would you do with the various groups, products and who else would you put in charge?</p><hr /><p><span style="font-size:85%;"><i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/mini-microsoft">Mini-Microsoft</a></i> <i><a title="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft" rel="tag" href="http://technorati.com/tag/microsoft">Microsoft</a> -- <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default">Comments</a></i></span></p>Who da'Punkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205453956191063442noreply@blogger.com278